


let him be the king of ashes

by cabinfever



Series: towards a burning sun [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Disability, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Like...quite slow, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Prompto deals with his origins, Resurrection, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 11:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 144,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11736135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: The dawn doesn't let them heal. Not all the way. Not in the ways that they need.When they help Noctis out of the Citadel, they’re all stumbling. Ignis doesn’t know his way around the rubble and withered bodies of Insomnia. Prompto’s gait is uneven, and his breath comes in ragged gasps sometimes; the hot iron scent of blood follows him into the warmth of the sun. Gladio is shell-shocked and silent, unharmed in body but troubled in mind. And Noct-Noct is different."Oh, gods," Ignis whispers. “What have we done?”





	1. dawn.

The fight for the dawn is a messy affair, by all accounts.

They’re fighting to stall for time, holding off the waves of daemons that the Starscourge breeds from the earth. Knowing what they know now about what these creatures used to be, Ignis feels less like a soldier protecting his king and more like a murderer. Every daemon he sinks a dagger into could have been his favorite florist, or the owner of that arcade Noctis and Prompto used to be so fond of, or the military surplus store owner that Gladio liked. Every one of them could have been a boy like Prompto, raised to live and die for Niflheim.

But he doesn’t let that stop him, and he kills them all the same.

Gladio leaps from his side with a savage roar, and Ignis feels suddenly off guard; they’d been fighting back to back for a few minutes now, and the loss of warmth at his back is jarring. But he readjusts his stance and makes a wide sweep in a circle around himself with his radiant lance, hoping that he’ll catch anything that’s edged into his area while he was off guard. The tip of the lance catches against something gelatinous and thick, and he shoves the spear in deeper, relishing the bubbling scream of the creature as the holy weapon burns it from the inside out. 

It’s like a dance, really, and he times his moves to the rhythm of Prompto’s gunshots. They haven’t done this in a long while, at least not together. They’ve always had a wonderful melody that they’ve hammered out in steel and flesh, connected by the Crystal as they are. But after having gotten the chance to fight with Noctis at their side again, the triumph of their trio reuniting is dampened. Like getting the chance to drive the Regalia and then being given the keys to a rental car. Lackluster and empty.

Prompto screams from across the plaza, and his gun goes off in rapid succession, without rhythm or finesse. Ignis turns towards the sound and starts running. He almost runs headlong into a daemon on the way there, but he summons a spear and skewers the thing where he figures its heart is, and he continues unhindered, recalling the lance to his hands as he goes. If he had vision, it’d be all tunnelled, focused on getting to Prompto as soon as humanly possible.

He falls to his knees where the scent of iron and fear is the strongest, and Prompto whimpers into his ears when he gets close, “Iggy, help.”

“Where is it? What is it?” Ignis begins patting at Prompto’s limbs, trying to find the source of the blood on his hands.

“It’s my leg, it’s - behind you, Iggy!”

Ignis whirls and calls up his lance again, aiming it backwards. Prompto reaches out and steadies his hand, pointing the lance in the right direction, and Ignis takes the shot. He hears an answering screech of pain, feels the familiar burst of twisted heat on his face, and turns back to Prompto. “Your leg, Prom?”

“Thigh,” Prompto grits out between his teeth. “Hurts so much, Iggy.”

Ignis carefully traces his fingers along one of Prompto’s thighs and comes across the gash. It’s not too deep, from what he can tell, but when he prods at it clumsily Prompto screams in his ear and there’s a burning feeling on his fingertips. Poison, then. “Do you have an antidote?” he asks, and he feels the whisper of hair on his face when Prompto shakes his head. “Damn,” he hisses. He doesn’t have one either. Without the prince’s magic or people with the right know-how, they’d run low on the precious stuff within a few years. “We’ll have to treat it later.”

Prompto groans and nods against Ignis’s shoulder. “I’ll just- I’ll sit tight for now.”

“You do that.” Ignis pats him gingerly on the shoulder, mindful of the blood of his hands, and he stands, calling a set of daggers to his hands in a shower of sparks. He hovers near Prompto, though, fending off anything that would try to come their way.

Gladio makes his way over to them with grim sureness, and he brushes shoulders with Ignis to let him know he’s there. “Holding up?” he calls down to Prompto, voice distant and hard.

“Well enough,” Prompto squeaks, and he fires off a round that whistles between their bodies and lodges itself in something off to Ignis’s left.

It feels like they’ve been like this for hours or for heartbeats. Ignis’s arms are getting tired, but he has a feeling that even if he took one of the muscle stimulants he’s accumulated over the years, it won’t help. The leaden tiredness in his bones feels like more than just exhaustion. In the back of his mind, there’s a nagging voice telling him that no matter what they do to kill these daemons, it won’t matter. They’ll still lose. 

They’ll still lose Noct.

He tries to push it down, but the feeling remains no matter how hard he ignores it. He tries to bury it in the chest of a Ronin alongside his dagger, but it returns to him all the same. There’s something like anticipation burning in the magical connection that holds them together, and it crackles with the sheer volume of energy. Something is happening, and they aren’t there. Noctis is in danger, and  _ they aren’t there _ .  

There’s a force that knocks him down, ringing in his ears like a concussion, and Ignis sees  _ light _ . 

It’s so white that it’s shocking amid all of the blackness that Ignis has grown used to, and he staggers for a moment. A sound like a shout tears itself from his throat in surprise. He finds himself on his hands and knees, sprawled out on the plaza with his daggers skittering with metal music away from him. There are cuts on his palms and they  _ sting _ .

And then he realizes-

It’s quiet.

The daemons are gone all at once. Gladio is on the ground beside him, and Prompto pants in agony behind them, but their breathing is the only thing he hears. They all know what it means. They all know what their king has done.

They wait in stunned silence for a few long moments. Without the daemons, the entirety of Insomnia feels empty. Ignis is suddenly incredibly aware of just how much Insomnia has fallen, that it would be silent without daemons to fill it. 

And then-

There’s a hint of warmth on his face, and without thinking he turns his face to it. He hasn’t felt something like that in years, and not even the massive floodlights in the greenhouses of Lestallum could replicate the feeling of the sun on his face. He’d know it anywhere. Something blooms in his chest that might be a sob, and he lets it come out in a great heave, greeting the first dawn with the dew of his tears. He might be rejoicing, but they all know the cost.

Beside him, Prompto staggers to his feet, groaning in more than just pain. “The dawn,” he gasps out, weak and desperate. “He did it. Noct did it.”

“He’s gone,” Gladio says, and Ignis has never heard his voice sound so soft.

Ignis reaches out with one of his hands, letting a dagger fall to the ground. It doesn’t spark into the armiger. He tries to ignore it. Prompto catches his hand, holding tightly to it with fingers slick with blood and poison. He’s shaking, or maybe they both are. “We have to go,” Ignis manages past the knot in his throat that threatens to unravel into weeping. “We have to go inside.”

“Inside,” Gladio echoes.

“To get Noct.” Yes, that’s it. Nothing matters but Noct. This is all that Ignis has ever known. Even during the ten long years of waiting, they had all been waiting for him. For the king. Ignis cannot possibly let him go now. 

“Ignis,” Prompto says softly, and his voice warbles with tears. “Ignis, he’s dead.”

“And we’re getting him!” Ignis snaps. 

Prompto recoils like he’s been shot.

Ignis heaves a shuddering sigh. “I will not leave Noctis to be in there alone. Not again.”

“I hear you, Iggy,” Prompto mumbles. “Let’s go.” He tightens his grip on Ignis’s hand, and then shifts. “Gladio, please.”

Gladio moves to life beside them, like a statue moved to action. He must gather up Prompto somehow, because Ignis’s hand is being pulled upwards, and then they’re all shuffling up towards the Citadel together. Gods, they must look a mess. Ignis stumbles a bit on one of the stairs, and one of Gladio’s hands shoots out immediately to steady him, but it’s gone again before he can even utter a thank you. 

The elevator ride, this time, is silent.

When they enter the throne room, it feels cold and unwelcoming despite the hints of the sun creeping in from the shattered walls. Ignis turns his face forward to where he knows Noct is, and something like dread sinks into his heart. He doesn’t want to go up the stairs. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t.

He climbs them anyway.

Already, Noct’s gone still and cold. The remnants of the endless night and tomblike chill of the throne room have locked Noctis on the throne like a statue. 

“How does he look?” Ignis asks softly.

“Iggy, you-“ Gladio’s voice is strangled and miserable. “You don’t want to know.”

“Gladio.” He has to know.

“Regal. Like his father.” He makes a sobbing, choking noise. “Gods above, that’s his sword.”

Like a man underwater, Ignis reaches out with molasses slowness. The hitch in Prompto's breath tells him he's close. So he extends his fingers until they brush against something metallic and freezing. It's ridged and elegant, and Ignis realizes that it's a wing. King Regis's sword. In its position, facing the throne, that can only mean one thing.

“Oh, Noct,” he breathes, and that’s enough to send Prompto into heaving, wracking sobs against his shoulder.

They stand there, at the throne, for however long it takes to get themselves under control. It must be a while, because Ignis can feel the soft warmth of the newborn sun creeping up along his arms where they’re wrapped around one of Prompto’s arms and part of Gladio. But they break apart eventually, and they know that it’s time.

They take him down carefully. Even the way that that sounds in Ignis’s head makes him flinch. Noctis is not a trophy. Gladio carefully loosens the sword from where it’s lodged in the back of the throne - and in Noct, but none of them think it,  _ they don’t  _ \- and brings the king down from his throne and into their waiting arms. Ignis cannot see the scene that they make, but he can imagine how small Noctis must look, cradled in Gladio’s arms. Not thirty, but small, like the child he had been when Ignis had first met him. And somehow, that image, the thought of his prince being born to die like this, alone and terrified, has Ignis shaking.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to reach for his pocket, but his hand finds its way there anyway, pulling something out like he’s in a trance.

It’s a phoenix down. Ignis had been saving it for…a special occasion? Maybe that’s the term. Over the ten year period of Noct’s rest in the Crystal, they’d all become better hunters and fighters. He can barely remember the last time he’d used one, but somehow he’s packed it for this final battle. 

Better now than ever before.

“Will it work?” Prompto asks softly. “Now that the Crystal and Noct-”

“We’ll have to try,” Ignis interrupts. “We have to, for Noct.”

He wraps his hands around Noct’s - they’re so cold, so still - and keeps the plume of down clenched between his freezing fingers. He sends a prayer to whichever one of the Six is listening, and then he crushes the down with their hands. 

For a few breathless seconds, nothing happens. The throne room remains cold and silent. There is no hum of magic in their bones, and the lack of blueness makes the Citadel feel like even more of a tomb. Gladio lets out a stuttering breath that might be the beginning of a sob. 

But then-

Noct gasps.

And then he coughs, wet and frantic, and he stirs in Gladio’s arms. His hands, still clutched in Ignis’s own, turn warm in a near instant, almost hot to the touch.

_ He’s alive _ , Ignis thinks in wonder.  _ It worked, we saved him, he’s back. _

“Sh, Noct,” Prompto soothes, and his voice is shockingly steady. Trust him to be their rock. “Noct, you’re hurt-”

“I’m  _ dead _ .”

Noct’s voice is raspy and wrecked, like he’s been screaming for years. He’s shaking and panicking in their arms. “I’m dead, I should be dead, where’s  _ Luna _ -” His voice is rising to a sickening wail, high and desperate and destroyed.

Ignis finds his voice again, tracing circles along one of Noct’s knuckles. “You’re with us in the Citadel. You’re with me and Gladio and Prompto. You remember, Noct. We won.” Somewhere, deep in his heart, something cold is sinking with heavy sureness.  _ This is wrong, all wrong.  _

Noct is still struggling in their arms. “I should be  _ dead _ ,” he whispers again, and then he falls still.

“Oh, gods,” Ignis whispers. “What have we done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ignis art can be found [here](http://triplehelix.tumblr.com/post/165449742409/so-when-dawn-breaks-youll-know-it-pen-and).


	2. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis wakes, and everything gets worse.

Prompto doesn’t leave Noct’s side for days.

Ignis stops by when he can, but he’s busy trying to organize relief efforts and is helping with the mass movement of people into what remains of Insomnia. He’s trying to put people in the districts that were relatively undamaged in the Fall, redirecting people from the squalor of overcrowded Lestallum and into the wide, rubble-filled streets of the old capital. Gladio has been a ghost to them all, and Prompto has caught glimpses of him in the room only in the quiet hours when he’s just waking up. He’s never able to say anything to Gladio, though, because he leaves in a silent rush as soon as Prompto stirs into consciousness. Prompto wants to confront him, but he has to stay here by Noct’s side.

The makeshift hospital in Hammerhead is cold and cramped, but it’s all they have. Noct lies on a bed that’s been piled with the best blankets and pillows that the hunters could scare up; it seems that even after the ruin of the world people still have some ingrained loyalty to the kings of Lucis. He looks almost peaceful, surrounded by the careworn black blankets and patchwork quilts of his people.

He looks different. He looks wrong.

There are angry red lines spidering up his right arm, across his chest, and up his neck and face. The skin in between the lines is soft and gray and almost dead. Here, in the bed, he certainly looks dead. It looks like there’s fire in his veins. Prompto wonders if that’s from the force of the Lucii using his body to burn the Scourge out of the world.

Prompto looks down at his own hands. They’re paler than they’ve ever been, even after years in the night, and through the translucence of his flesh he can see the lines of his own veins. They’re not the gentle blue he’s used to; now, they’re a soft red that traces across his whole body in a fiery web. They’re not as angry and scarlet-bright as Noct’s, but they’re definitely from the same source. The fires that killed the Starscourge burned through them both. But Prompto still has the barcode that reminds him of what he had been.

_ Branded for life _ . 

But the redness marks him as a Lucian, and it reminds him that he fought beside the king to bring back the dawn and burn the blackness out of the world and out of himself, so he’s proud of it, he thinks. 

“Come on, Noct,” he whispers. “You have to wake up.”

And then he does. 

Noct’s eyes flutter for a moment, then fly wide with unerring certainty, fixing on Prompto at once. He rasps out something that might be a word, then tries again.

“Prompto.”

One of his irises, the one on the right, is red. It’s the furious scarlet of the magic that killed him, matching the blue in his left eye of the magic that brought him back to life. It’s immediately unsettling, and Prompto suppresses a shiver even as he leans in closer, clutching at one of Noct’s hands. “It’s me, buddy,” he says quickly. “It’s Prompto.”

“Prompto,” Noctis echoes again. He blinks, and then the slack lines of his brows furrow into something miserable. “Why am I here?”

Prompto, meanwhile, is frantically pressing the ‘call’ function on his phone to Ignis, hoping that he’ll get the message. He plasters on what he hopes is a good enough smile and answers, “You’ve been out for a while, Noct.”

“Out?” Something confused and unbearably sad is brewing in the blue of his left eye. “Where was I?”

“With us,” Prompto answers. He smiles again, shakily. “You were banged up pretty badly. We took you home from the Citadel.”

“The Citadel,” Noctis echoes. His gaze slides off into the distance, fixing on something that neither of them can see. He chews on his lip for a few minutes, and Prompto lets him, hoping that Ignis will show up soon. Then Noct’s eyes widen, just a bit, and he turns his head to the side, looking at Prompto the way that a lost puppy once did. “So where’s Luna?”

Prompto bites his lip. “Ah. Well.” He runs his free hand through his hair, searching for the right words. 

“Noct.”

And there’s Ignis, thank the  _ gods _ . Prompto’s pretty sure he’s never heard that tone out of Ignis in his entire life. 

Noctis looks like he might smile, but then he pauses mid-way, maybe remembering that his expressions won’t matter to Ignis anyway. Or maybe he’s just relieved he doesn’t have to pretend. Either way, his face stays carefully neutral, only conveying emotion through his wide mismatched eyes. “Ignis.”

Ignis does smile, and it’s a wild, relieved thing that Prompto hasn’t seen for at least five years. “How are you feeling?”

Noctis takes a second with that one. He seems to realize that he’s in bed, and he carefully extricates his hand from Prompto’s grip, staring at it with eyes that only seem to get wider. He turns his hand, inspecting it in silence. The scarlet of his veins turns iridescent as he moves. “What happened to me?” he asks. And then again, firmer: “Where’s Luna?”

“Luna is not with us, Noctis,” Ignis says. His voice wavers. “You may not remember, but you were badly hurt in Insomnia and-”

“I was dead.” Noct’s voice is hollow. “Don’t lie.” He looks up at Ignis with eyes that burn with recognition and hurt, and Ignis flinches under the weight of a gaze he cannot see. Noct turns his eyes to Prompto. “Why?”

Prompto winces. “You could still have more time,” he says. “We could all-”

“More time,” Noctis echoes. There’s an edge to his voice, scathing and burning. “More time.” He shifts in the bed, drawing himself up to sit with only minimal flinching. He’s not wearing a shirt, and that exposes the stiff white bandages wrapped around his chest. Noctis stares down at them in silence, breathing slowly to watch the bandages rise and fall. Prompto knows what’s under the bandages, and he hates it. 

“Noctis,” Ignis starts.

Noct whips his head around with a swiftness he had not yet displayed. Gods, he barely looks like himself. He’s all angles and fire and ash, nothing like the soft coolness he’d always worn like a cloak. “Not you,” he hisses. “You can go.”

Ignis recoils. He opens his mouth, falters, and then closes it slowly. Prompto almost reaches for his hand, but he fears that Ignis might shatter if he does. Ignis takes one step back, then another, and then another. His blind eye never leaves Noctis, like he’s drawn to his king no matter what. “Majesty,” he says finally, and his voice cracks around the word.

He leaves.

Prompto stares at the door for a minute after Ignis has gone. Noct has...he’s turned Ignis away. He’s never been so hostile. Angry, yes, but never so abrasive. Had the Crystal been the thing that had changed him this much? Or was it the phoenix down that had ripped him from somewhere he’d not been eager to leave?

“You’re hurt,” Noctis says faintly, breaking their uncomfortable silence.

Prompto looks down and finally acknowledges his legs. Or. Leg. His right leg is a stump now, wrapped in white bandages above the spot where his knee had been. The poison had been too advanced by the time they’d made it back to someone who could care for him. “Oh,” he replies. “Yeah, I am. Almost forgot, ha.” He gives a little titter of laughter. It sounds hollow even to his own ears.

Noctis’s eyebrows crease into an even deeper sadness. “You can’t walk,” he says plaintively. “Prompto.”

Prompto pats his hand. “Don’t worry about me, buddy. I can get around just fine.” He reaches down and rolls at the wheels on his chair, scooting a foot back and then forward again. “See? Like nothing changed.”

“Everything has changed,” Noctis says solemnly. He turns his head, staring out of the narrow window to the sunlight outside. 

“Noct,” Prompto tries, but Noctis just raises a burn-scarred arm.

“Don’t,” he says. “Leave me alone.”

Prompto rolls back a few inches. “Sure,” he says softly. “Yeah, buddy, whatever you need.” He carefully maneuvers the wheelchair around the bed, trying to ignore the burning feeling of Noctis’s gaze on the back of his neck. His grip slips and falters, and he gasps for breath, scrambling at the wheels to regain control. His cheeks heat up against his will, and that’s how he leaves the room for the first time in days, burning with shame as he makes his way out into reality.

Cindy’s working on a car as he wheels past the garage, taking off the steel spikes along its wheels that were designed to hurt daemons that would try to stop regular deliveries. She glances at him curiously and with a hint of pity as he goes by. “He awake?” she asks quietly. 

Prompto hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her voice. “Yeah,” he says, hoping that the tremor in his voice isn’t too obvious. 

But Cindy knows him too well, and her brow creases with sympathy. Prompto  _ really _ hopes she won’t mention it. “Glad to see you up and about, sweetheart,” she says instead. “Get some sun, would ya?”

“Yeah, Cindy. ‘Course.” He offers her a half-smile and moves along. The soft metallic sounds of Cindy’s wrench follows him out, and it soothes his rattled nerves, if only a bit. He’s almost reluctant to leave the comforting half-darkness of the garage and its omnipresent scent of oil and old perfume.

Prompto wheels his way out into the sunlight, turning his face to welcome its warmth. Hammerhead isn’t as swelteringly hot as it used to be, but it’s getting there. He sits under the cloudless sky for a few minutes, trying to get some enjoyment out of not having to actually do anything for once. But his hands are twitching where they sit atop his wheels, itching for his guns or his camera or a purpose. Now that his watch over Noct has ended, he needs something new. He hasn’t known leisure in years.

Ignis is nowhere to be seen. He must be out at one of the old havens, the one that they’d stayed at years ago when they’d done that first favor for Cindy and Cid. That’d been one of his older haunts for the better part of the Night, and Prompto had med him there on more than one occasion. They don’t do much on those visits; they just sit and breathe, listening to the soft sounds of daemons waiting to close in on them. Some days, Prompto is sure that Ignis had wished they would.

But he can’t get to the haven now, not with the wheels. He could bother Cindy for some crutches or something, but he doesn’t want to interrupt her. She’s trying her best to make Hammerhead the best halfway stop as possible, reestablishing it as one of the safe places on the road to Insomnia. Already, refugees are starting to drift by foot along the road heading east, claiming that they’re returning to their old homes. Prompto had been watching them from the window in Noct’s room. 

Prompto wheels his way over to a little gaggle of them that’s gathered by the arms dealer. They’re not carrying much, though nobody really has much nowadays anyway. They must be a family, with a woman in tattered royal black, another woman wrapped in faded floral print, and a young girl of no older than twelve clinging to their hands. “Can I help you guys with something?” he offers. 

The woman in black scrubs a free hand across her brow. “Just trying to get my hands on a blade,” she says in a tone that she probably hopes is casual. But Prompto doesn’t miss the strained set to her eyebrows and the way her jaw is clenched. 

“I’m sorry,” the dealer says grimly, “but I can’t shave that much gil off the price. Times are tough for all of us.”

Prompto looks from the dealer to the woman to the little girl. “Are you Crownsguard?” he asks the woman in black.

One end of her mouth twitches upward. “Glaive, actually,” she replies, and there’s a hint of some other accent in her voice. Prompto notices the braid along her scalp now. “Or I was. I was out on injury when the city fell.”

“Hm.” Prompto studies her carefully. He carefully lifts his right hip off of the seat of his chair, digging around in one of his pockets.

“Oh, you don’t have to-” the woman in flowers tries, but he holds up a hand to stop her.

“Please,” he insists, and he pulls out a handful of gil. “How much are they short?” he asks the dealer. He remembers this guy from the Night; he’d thrown himself into making weapons for any hunter who needed them. He’s a good guy; he wouldn’t have made it through the Night without caring for those around him.

The dealer raises an eyebrow, but then he seems to make a decision in his head and sighs. “Only fifty.”

Prompto nods thoughtfully, counting out the money in his palm. He drops the money in the dealer’s outstretched hand. “Give her a good one,” he orders, meeting the dealer’s eyes. He really hopes that he’s picked up on Ignis’s negotiation faces. 

The dealer nods and pulls out a relatively shiny sword. It’s wickedly sharp looking and has a delicate curve to it. The woman in black takes it reverently, inspecting it with a practiced eye. She looks down at Prompto, eyes brimming with unshed tears. 

“What’s your name?” she asks him. “So I can pay you back.”

Prompto rolls back and forth on his wheels, biting his lip. “It’s a gift,” he declares on a whim. “Seriously.” He starts to head away, but then he stops, looking back at the family. He says, “Hey. Uh. I’m heading back to Insomnia soon too. If you ever need anything - my name’s Prompto.”

“Argentum,” the woman in black, the Glaive, breathes, eyes widening. “I know about you.” In her eyes, something like pity blooms. She’s looking at his legs, or what’s left of them. Not everything she’d expected from a name like his, for sure.

Prompto shrugs. “Just a name, really.” He starts wheeling away again. “In Insomnia, then.”

She nods silently and lets him go.

Prompto continues into the sun, wincing at every bump in the pavement which jostles his still-healing body. It’s painful, but he grits his teeth against it. He’s been through worse than this. He can make it across this parking lot if it damn well kills him.

He sees a familiar bulk over by the gas pumps, quietly talking with a grizzled looking hunter whose name Prompto should probably remember. He doesn’t, of course, and that makes it hurt all the more that Gladio is talking to  _ him _ and not Prompto. Gladio’s wearing his hair down for once, and it hangs in thick black sheets past his shoulders. It’s the look of a man who’s stopped caring for utility, nothing like the militant styles he’s worn previously. Prompto frowns.

“Gladio,” he calls.

Gladio looks over his shoulder, startled. Even from across the tarmac, Prompto can see the way his brow furrows and his shoulders adopt a guilty hunch. He starts to slink away. Prompto plants his palms on his wheels and  _ pushes _ , heading towards Gladio as quickly as he can. “Gladio!” he yells again, and this time others turn their heads at the sound. But Gladio keeps moving, steadfastly avoiding Prompto.

Prompto rolls his eyes and speeds up, thanking the Six that Cindy took care of the pavement at the station, or else he’d be toast. And not in the good Ignis-cooked-it way. 

“Gladio! Wait up!”

Gladio finally stops, but he doesn’t turn to face Prompto until Prompto’s made it all the way across the tarmac to him.  _ Way to meet me halfway _ , he grumbles to himself, trying to ignore the twinge of exhaustion that’s made its way down to the wound on his leg. He looks up and studies Gladio’s face, which is now considerably above his own now that he’s stuck in the chair. Gladio’s amber eyes are almost sunken in his face, and his dark skin has an ugly sheen to it that speaks of long nights spent awake. He looks like a man twice his age.

“What do you want?” he asks, but he doesn’t really sound like he cares.

Prompto crosses his arms. “Are you aware that Noct’s awake?” He doesn’t even wait for Gladio’s reply, emboldened by the warmth of the sun. “Of course you weren’t. You’re never there.”

“Prompto.”

“Where were you?” Prompto growls, spitting out the words as if they’re the remnants of the poison that destroyed him. “He needed you. He  _ needs _ you. Ignis needs you. I need you.”

Gladio’s face hardens into stone. “I don’t owe you anything,” he snarls. He turns and stalks off, and he doesn’t look back.

Prompto lets him leave.

He sinks back down in his chair, all defiance draining out of him. Borrowed strength is all he has now. All any of them have. Without the magic of the Crystal to hold them together, the bonds between them have loosened, no longer as natural to them as bone and breath.

Ignis hides somewhere, broken and ashamed and blind to more than just the world around him.

Gladio has cast himself into a self-imposed exile, angry and feral.

Noctis, their king, wants nothing more than to throw his body aside and give himself back to the gods which granted him life once more.

And here sits Prompto, unable to reach them. He’d always thought he could hold all of them together.

They’re all scattered, like ashes on the wind.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special special thanks to jaciopara for making this beautiful art for this chapter! You can find it [here](http://jaciopara.tumblr.com/post/163968789527/this-fic-is-already-tragic-and-you-know-itll-get) on tumblr!


	3. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis tries to adjust.

Merrioth Haven is cold at night.

He knows the walk to the haven by heart now. He’s used to being accosted by daemons along the way, but with the return of the dawn and the purging of the Starscourge, his walk up to the haven is abnormally silent. Ignis almost misses the danger of the trek. His hands are itching for something he can’t reach, something that he’d lost in Insomnia or Altissia or that he’d never had in the first place. 

_ Noct _ , his traitorous mind reminds him, and he pushes it down.

The fresh air will do him some good.

His routine is the same as it’s always been: set up shelter, prepare food, and sit in contemplative silence. He sets about unloading the items in his pack. He’s forgone a tent for today, knowing that in this dawn age the sun has made Leide hot again, decreasing the chances of rain. Besides, he likes to sit in the open air, even though he can’t see the stars.

As he sets out his bedroll and chair, he lets his mind wander. His hands know their job well enough for him to set his thoughts on more pleasant things. With his eyes closed, it’s almost like he’s merely blinking, caught in the middle of their first time setting up camp. Noct, bumbling and lost with chairs in hand, dodging Prompto’s myriad photo ops. Gladio, bragging about how quickly he’s set up the tent. And Ignis, fondly grumbling about their noise while setting up the cookware for the night. They’re all in high spirits, ready to take down the mutant dualhorn that Dave had told them about. He can almost hear the laughter, can almost see them running around, illuminated only by the campfire and the faint blue lights of the haven.

It’s a pretty thought.

But the havens are worthless now, and their runes don’t light up with a musical hum when he’s around them. It seems that all the magic is gone from the world, and all the joy with it.

But still, the havens remain, and so does Ignis. They go together well, he thinks: two broken things, cast aside after the Night.

He makes a meal of some salted meat and new-picked herbs. Already, some of the plants of Lucis have returned, thanks to the quick work of the farmers who had stockpiled everything at the beginning of the Night. And the sun has done wonders over the week already, encouraging long-dormant seeds to bring themselves out into the light. He savors the freshness after years spent eating over-preserved scraps. It feels good to actually be able to manipulate ingredients in his hands, to have something he can have and hold and use however he wishes. He immerses himself in the therapeutic routine of preparation and artisanship. It truly has been a while. He just wishes he had someone to share it with.

The broth he ends up with is one of the more pleasant-smelling things he’s eaten in the past months. He doesn’t get the chance to do this thing much, stuck as he’d been in the routines of managing Lestallum with the ladies there. Holly had always offered him breaks, and Prompto had called more than a few times begging him to come out on a hunt with them, but he’s enjoyed the focused life in Lestallum. It’d reminded him of the better days at the Citadel. So while he misses the administrative life in Lestallum, he savors the taste of freedom that’s swimming in his bowl. Little victories, he supposes.

He settles himself in the little fold-out chair and starts to devour the soup. Gods, he’s hungry; he’d barely realized it. But he’s ravenous, perhaps because his mind has recognized that the times of rationing may soon be over. The meat is still chewy and a little disgusting, even with the broth and herbs to liven it up, but he’ll settle for anything, frankly. 

He could really go for an Ebony.

He’s halfway through the bowl when something scrapes against rock from across the haven. Ignis sets the bowl aside slowly, and he can  _ feel _ his ears straining to listen for the sound. It can’t be an animal; the ones that survived are few and far between, and not nearly bold enough to come to a haven. It’s a footstep, as far as he can tell. Yes, there’s another one, scraping clumsily in a halfhearted attempt at stealth.

Ignis bends slowly and slips a hand down his leg to where one of his daggers is holstered. The other hand finds the one at his waist. Would someone really try and sneak up on a blind man, even now after everything they’ve been through? He’s not quite eager to find out, though, and he starts to draw one of the daggers out with a soft metallic slide.

The footsteps draw closer, resolving themselves into an identity.

Ah.

“Gladio,” Ignis greets him, sitting back in his seat. Who else would it be? Not Prompto, hindered as he is by the loss of his leg. And he’s barely breathed a word to the Marshal or Aranea or any of the others with whom he’s talked over the ten long years waiting for the king to return. Very few people know of his private haven under the thankless sky. No, it’s Gladio, and he knows it. He takes his hands off of the hilts of his daggers.

There’s the distinct sound of a chair scraping across stone, and it draws closer. The worn fabric of the camp chair squeaks and groans, rubbing across its metal supports as Gladio eases himself into it. He’s moving slowly, Ignis notes, listening to the way Gladio carries himself across the campsite. He sounds like the way Regis had moved, slow and painful, like the world has drained him of something critical. Gladio remains silent, so it seems that Ignis must be the one to start this particular conversation.

“Have you gone to see him yet?”

“Who?” Gladio’s voice is raspy and wrecked. Has he been crying?

Ignis frowns in his direction. “You know who, Gladio. Don’t try to be coy with me.”

Gladio answers, “No.” It’s a too-short answer, even for him. Gladio’s never been this cagy before, always wearing his heart on his sleeve. For the millionth time, Ignis wishes he had his sight so he could read Gladio better. 

“Are you planning on it?”

“Eventually.” Gladio snorts, almost defensively. “Six above, Iggy, do you really think that I wouldn’t go see him?”

Ignis shoves his spoon into the soup. It splashes a bit, and he grimaces; that’ll be a menace to clean. Oil never gets out of clothes. “You haven’t yet.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow. So Gladio is making a habit of keeping secrets. “Ah. Was he awake when you visited, or have you only ever looked at his body?”

“He wasn’t a  _ body  _ when he was here, Ignis, gods.” Gladio sounds vaguely disgusted and a little incensed, which frankly is better than the defensive apathy he’s been using. “He’s been alive since before he got here.”

And yes, Ignis knows that. But he’s in a foul mood, and Gladio is here so Gladio is the one he’s cross with. He asks, “When will you go?” He doesn’t bother apologizing for what he’s said.

“I said eventually. Get off my case.”

“You sound like a child, Gladiolus.”

“And you sound bitter.”

“He hates me, Gladio.” The words feel ugly spilling from his lips, like the poison which had destroyed Prompto’s leg. Has his own inadequacy spread with the same noxious certainty? “He knows that I did it.”

“We all did it,” Gladio counters. “Nobody stopped you.”

“He let Prompto stay, Gladio.” And there’s the ugliness again, rising in his heart like bile. It feels like resentment. 

Gladio lets out a quiet  _ whoosh _ of breath. “That doesn’t mean anything. He keeps Prompto around all the time-”

Ignis slams his palm on his leg, surprising them both with the sound and himself with the pain. “He told me, ‘not you’. He  _ knew _ , Gladio.” He can still feel the burning heat of Noct’s gaze, and he’s almost glad that he hadn’t been able to see it. But it feels almost like a cop-out to be spared the sight of what he’s done to his king.

“What are you going to do about it?”

And there’s the rub. It stops Ignis in his tracks, and he clenches his hand over his leg where it’s fallen. Gladio’s question rings in his ears with a husky insistence. Gods, he’s always known how to get to the point, how to pierce through all of Ignis’s endless  _ thinking. _ He’s the one with the plan; always has been. Doesn’t he have a plan? What is he going to do about it? 

Lost, he says, “I don’t know.”

And he doesn’t.

Ignis rubs at the hilt of one of his daggers. The leather soothes him, somehow. He’s thankful that he’d had his blades out of the armiger when Noct had-

When Noct had gone.

Ah. There again.  _ Mind back on track, Scientia. _ But his lance is lost to him now, locked away in the void behind a door that no longer exists. He feels its loss like a limb, and he wonders if the others miss the weapons they’d lost to the dawn.

"Where are you keeping your sword?" he asks, turning his face to the fire’s warmth and to Gladio.

“On my back, when I go out. It’s in the caravan right now.” He sighs. “I’m lucky to have had it out.”

“Lucky indeed.” Ignis picks at a stray bit of skin from one of his cuticles. It’s been too long since he’s taken care of himself; he makes a note to clean up sometime.

"I lost my shield." There's a note of utter misery in Gladio's voice. "It was in the armiger when it happened."

"Well," Ignis says, trying to find the confidence in his own voice. "All the more reason to find a new one. It's a new world, Gladio. We can start over."

Gladio snorts in derision. "You're honestly believing that? There’s no starting over, Iggy. We did this. We did  _ all _ of this, and now we have to live with it. One way or another.” 

“What are  _ you _ living with?” Ignis asks, feeling the antagonism rising in his throat again. He’s confrontational and hurt - who can blame him?

“Guilt, for one.” 

Hm. Interesting, but not entirely surprising. He says, slowly, “Go on.”

There’s a soft growl of annoyance. “You have your issues too-”

Ignis waves a hand. “This isn’t about me, Gladio. You’ve heard my grievances.”

Gladio falls quiet once more, and the night air between them fills with the sound of wind and distant engines. Ignis can hear him scratch at his hair, or his beard, or maybe both. All he knows is that Gladio is fidgeting, so unlike his usual statuesque stoicism. 

When he does speak, Gladio’s voice is back to sounding wrecked and confused and vulnerable. Like he’s ten years younger, coming to terms with something that they’d all been too young to understand. “I couldn’t save him, and now he’s miserable. You’re still blind, Prompto’s lost a leg, and Noct is hurting with every minute. And here I am, good as new.”

“Then you’ve been left whole to defend the king another day,” Ignis reminds him. “Come now, Gladio, you can’t seriously think that being uninjured is your fault.”

Gladio makes a noise deep in his throat, something desperate and frustrated. He hasn’t yet given voice to these emotions; that much Ignis can tell. A week of beating himself up over this must have been killing him. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he growls through clenched teeth.

Ignis opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it again with an audible  _ clack _ of teeth. He won’t bother antagonizing Gladio further; he’s not a tyrant. 

The night stretches on between them. Somewhere close to Ignis’s ear, an insect buzzes insistently. He shakes his head a bit to chase it off, and that flips a lock of hair into his face. Normally he wouldn’t mind, because vision hazards are the least of his worries, but it’s tickling his nose. He tries blowing a puff of air upwards to clear it, and he doesn’t miss Gladio’s surprised huff of half-laughter.

He decides to leave it, if it can make Gladio make that sound again.

They sit.

Ignis gestures to the fire. “Hungry?” he asks, because if there’s anything he can still do right, it’s this.

Gladio must give him a look, like he’s on to him, but he seems to decide to indulge Ignis, because he stands up. The chair creaks in protest again at his departure. There’s the gentle clinking of utensils on cookware, and then the gentle sloshing of the meager stew into one of Ignis’s spare bowls. Gladio’s footsteps shuffle dangerously close to him, like he means to touch Ignis, but then they patter away after a pause, like Gladio’s thought better of it. The chair squeaks again with canvas on metal, and then Gladio is quiet for a few minutes. Ignis turns his attention back to his own bowl of stew, which has long since gone cold.

He eats it anyway.

“It’s good,” Gladio tells him softly.

_ Like old times _ . “Thank you, Gladio,” Ignis says, dipping his head in acknowledgement. That little selfish part of him glows with pride, and it makes him feel warm.

And then they fall silent, letting only the wind and the fire fill the gaps between them.

They stay like that for hours, silently experiencing the other’s presence in this new world they’ve built for themselves that’s somehow worse than the one they’d left. Ignis almost asks Gladio to stay. Just for the night, or forever, he’s not sure - all he knows is that he needs someone here who will not tell him he’s not needed.

But Gladio stands and leaves, only offering a firm hand on his shoulder as farewell. Ignis holds himself back from giving into the temptation to lean into his touch, to beg for affection like a starved dog. He’s better than this.

He lets him go.

The footsteps of the King’s Shield are still slow, still plodding, still contemplative. Ignis hasn’t helped him; all he’s done is give him a meal and more to think about.  _ Useless, useless, useless _ , he tells himself, listening to the fading footsteps of his friend.

The wind picks up, carrying sand and salt and the scent of a coming storm. 

Ignis spends much of the rest of the night organizing and reorganizing his supplies long after he’s cleaned them. His hands are itching for something like magic or battle or his king, and he cannot grant them any of that. Sometimes, his hand strays to the hilt of a dagger, urging him to do something reckless to burn the fitful energy out of his bones, but he resists it every time.

He falls into a fitful slumber some time before dawn, late into the night.

He wakes feeling restless but calmer, like the haven has imbued him with something nostalgic and kind despite being useless. It’s a nice thought to hold onto as he packs his bags and starts the winding trek back to Hammerhead. The stumbles along the way are insignificant.

He passes the Marshal on his way in. He can tell from the way that the air suddenly smells of rain and ozone; Cor the Immortal seems to have that effect even without the magic of the Crystal. “Marshal,” he greets him politely.

“Ignis. It’s been a while.” And it has been. Ignis has been cooped up in Lestallum for far too long - two years without any major movements up until Noctis had awakened on Angelgard. Cor, meanwhile, had been on long rangings, basing himself out of Caem and heading into the deep darkness of Accordo, Tenebrae, and Niflheim. 

“When did you get to Hammerhead, sir?” he asks. 

“Just now, actually. I’ve come to see the king.” Ah. Of course he has. Only the king of Lucis could draw Cor back from his long self-imposed exile from the land he’d watched fall. He’s outlived three kings now, if Ignis counts Noctis among the fallen.

Ignis gestures vaguely into the compound. “Through the garage. Marshal, if I may-”

Cor makes a small noise that might have been a chuckle if it came from anyone other than him. "Haven't heard that title in a long time. Marshal of what, exactly?"

_ King of what, Noct snarls- _

Ignis chuckles, light and airy. Nothing is wrong. The king is alive. "Old habits, I'm afraid." Then he sobers, letting the sardonic smile drop from his face. “Marshal-”

“Cor is fine, Ignis.”

“Ah. I’ll try to remember.” He won’t. “I feel I must warn you: Noctis is...not well. He’s not taken well to his condition.”  _ And who put him there? _

Cor hums his acknowledgement. “I’ll keep it in mind.” He pauses, and Ignis hears his shoe scuff against the pavement of Hammerhead and then stop, as if he’d been about to leave and end their conversation. But he’s stopped, so Ignis waits for the Marshal to speak again. He does, and it’s what he asks that has Ignis’s mood falling into something poisonous again: “What’s the condition?”

Ignis doesn’t have time for this. He doesn’t have the patience. “Formerly dead, and changed beyond my capabilities,” he says curtly. “Good day, Marshal.” And then he’s turning on his heel and stalking away from the Marshal, ignoring Cor’s stuttering call of confusion.

So he’s rattled the legendary Immortal. A success.

“Ignis!” Prompto calls from somewhere across the outpost. So he’s outside, then. Taking a break from Noct’s side. Ignis pushes down the daemon in his chest that threatens to hate him for it and keeps walking. He wishes he still had the armiger, because he wants nothing more than to hold on tightly to the hilts of his daggers and sink them into something. Anything, anything to give him some relief.

He stalks off towards his meager quarters, ignoring Prompto’s pleading calls. They grow higher and reedier with each passing attempt, and Ignis thinks he can hear the scattered gravel crackling under his wheels for a time. But Prompto stops calling, and he stops chasing, and Ignis feels vindicated. Prompto can just go back to Noctis.

The sun climbs ever higher in the sky above him, casting still-unfamiliar heat on him. He needs to get out of this heat. He needs to get out.

At least his quarters are cooler.

Even though he’s just slept, he crawls onto the cot in his room anyway. It’s lumpy and hard and miserable, but he lies there on his back, staring up at blackness. His hands are itching again, begging him for something more than this uselessness, this failure.

He lies there, feeling the sun creeping into his bedroom, and he wishes for the night to come again.


	4. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio works.

_ He doesn’t think Noctis is breathing. _

_ He looks so small, crumpled up in the passenger seat. His limbs are so limp that he might as well be a doll, scarred and burned and broken beyond repair. He should be their king, and he looks the part too, but the robes of the old kings are stained with the scarlet ichor of his blood, and they’re torn where his father’s sword caught him. Even now, he’s curled around the shining, bloodstained blade, clutching to it in his sleep like it’s a lifeline. His arm - it’s scarred like it’s been burned by a flame, leaving only ashes and flame in the shape of the man Noctis had been. Its marks trace all the way up to Noct’s face, and the sight of it makes Gladio’s stomach turn. _

_ Prompto is panting and biting back screams, writhing in the backseat of their stolen car. Ignis is sitting in the backseat with Prompto's head resting in his lap, carding his hands through his sweat-slick hair. There's blood everywhere, and it’s streaked across his face and clothing and glasses. His hands are covered in it, and they glow with the faint sickly glow of poison which radiates from the ugly wound in Prompto’s leg. In the rearview mirror, they make a sickening tableau: the blind treating the poisoned; the victims of an endless war struggling to hold themselves together. _

_ The sun is shining into the car, but it feels more like they’re in darkness than all of the Night put together.  _

_ “Gladio, please!” Ignis pleads, and his voice is cracking. “They don’t have much time.” _

_ Gladio's driving faster than he ever has, and it’s still not fast enough. They’re running out of time, they’re running out of time- _

He wakes. 

Gladio sits bolt upright in bed, knocking his head on the corrugated metal top of his bed. He’s panting, shaking in his own sweat. At first he thinks that he’s in some prison, or back in the car, like he’s never left. Zegnautus, looking for Noct, traversing endless identical halls?

No.

Hammerhead, he realizes dully in the soft blue light that filters into his sleeping area. He’s in Hammerhead, and Noctis was dead.

The little part-caravan is barely big enough for his cot, and he feels claustrophobic all at once. They'd had to divide up resources as much as possible when the Night had fallen over Eos, and even though they'd lost many to the initial wave of daemons, living space had still been scarce in the few safe places left. A few deep breaths go a long way in reassuring him that he’s still somewhere safe in a world under the sun.

He shares this caravan with Prompto and Dave, who luckily have the tact to stay quiet if they’ve heard him gasping. Gladio’s glad that Prompto’s not next to him in the row of tiny sleeping spaces, because he doesn’t think he can bear looking him in the eye right now. Not now that he’s yelled at him, and not now that he’s just relived the smell of his blood and fear.

Idly, he reaches out with his right arm and  _ grabs _ , but his fist closes around thin air. He opens and closes his fingers a few more times in a chain of hope. The magic is gone, though, and with it his birthright. His name. His purpose.

What’s an Amicitia but a Shield? What’s an Amicitia  _ without _ their shield?

A sword, and a brutal one. Muscle and strength. He can do that. He can become that.

It’s late enough now that the sun is starting to hint at the coming morning. Gladio swings his feet over the side of the bed and plants them there. Then pressure, spurring his tired muscles into action, and then he’s standing. His feet carry him forward, carefully dodging the debris of life’s routines that he finds in his way out of the caravan: Prompto’s wheelchair, Dave’s ever-growing bag of tags yet unclaimed, and his own greatsword. He pauses beside it for a second, keeping his fingers a breath away from the hilt. But the blade feels clunky and foreign without the magic of the Lucians, so he leaves it and steps out into the soft neon light of Hammerhead.

He takes a deep breath of air, savoring the freshness of it. He’d spent so long in the Scourge-poisoned Night that he hadn’t even realized that the air had been stale. Now the wind is balmy and carries the scent of distant salt. It’s not home, and it never will be, but Gladio likes this Hammerhead.

But his feet carry him past its border fence and into the still-cool wilds of the desert beyond. It’s a familiar path, just like Ignis’s trek to Merrioth Haven. Along the way, he passes landmarks that pull up half-buried memories. Here’s where they fought that first band of reapertails for Cindy, and there’s Longwythe looming in the distance. Gladio chuckles at the memory of Prompto’s panicky yells as they’d headed towards the rumbling Adamantoise. It’s a surprising thing to do, and he savors the sweetness of the memory before he lets his face fall again. His muscles feel too heavy for smiling.

He spots something glimmering in the dust and bends to pick it up. It’s a remnant of some long-gone battle, a theory confirmed by the deep gouges in a nearby rock. Was this their doing, ten years ago? Or was it some other hunter, taking on a monster they hadn’t been prepared to find? Gladio rubs the dirt off of the object, letting its metallic sheen return under the new sun.

Another dog tag.

He checks the name, just in case he’d known one of them. Everyone had tried to become a hunter in some way or another once the Night had fallen. Too many of them hadn’t been prepared for the horrors that would come with protecting the weak from the daemons that would try to harm them. Gladio doesn’t recognize the name; he’d doubted that he would. But it’s a blow to the gut nonetheless. 

They’d lost so many trying to wait for the dawn.

Gladio tucks the tag into one of his pants pockets and continues on past the site.

The sun is just barely beginning to break the horizon when Gladio arrives at his destination. It’s a quiet spot in the shadow of one of the many looming boulders of the deserts of Leide. Gladio rolls his head around, trying to loosen up his neck, and cracks his knuckles.

It’s time to get to work.

He toes his shoes off, standing barefoot on the cracked earth. It’s a foreign feeling, to bare his feet to the mercy of the elements, but the ground is pleasant enough. 

Pushups first. He drops to the ground and presses his hands and toes into the gravelly earth. It’s comfortably cool in the half-light of the sun, but the hard rocks and old dry remnants of plants dig into his skin. They’re stronger than his sword calluses and running-hardened toes. The prickle of them is only an annoyance, really, and a welcome one at that. It brings his wandering mind back to earth. Gladio presses his fingers into the earth and pushes his body up, then down, then up again, going through the exercise with the strict military precision he’s always known. Twenty, forty, sixty, and then he stops. He’s barely breathing harder; he’s hardly broken a sweat.

He needs more.

Situps.

Back digging into the sand this time, he goes through it again. Twenty, forty, sixty. Each rep presses his feet flat into the rubble of Leide, and he welcomes the sting. The rocks are helping, rubbing off some part of him that he knows is unclean.

More.

A jog. He clambers to his feet with easy grace and untired muscles that are begging for exertion, and he starts to run. He’s chosen this spot for a reason: there’s a bulky outcropping of rock here, and it’s got a wide circumference. He doesn’t bother stretching and invites the consequences with open arms. Still barefoot, he kicks up dust in his wake. He falls into an easy rhythm, working his way through the desert. There’s some resistance to his movements as the sand gives and slides beneath his feet, but he just lowers his head and powers through. He’s a sword, and swords cut through that which tries to stop them.

More.

Back at his spot, he does his squats, planting his sand-speckled feet in the earth. There’s a burn in his legs, palpable after the run. Good. Twenty, forty, sixty.

He needs more.

Back to the ground, nose brushing the dusty earth. He pants out a breath and then breathes in again. The dawn-fresh smell of old life and new growth fills his nose, triggering some long-buried sense memory. It reminds him of a spring in Insomnia. Iris had clung to his shoulders, laughing, and Noct had run alongside them both, eyes alight with rare unbridled joy.

_ Noct. _

More, more, he needs more.

He works long into the morning, ignoring the sun’s inexorable rising through the sky. It’s sweltering, but he relishes the extra burn. The skin on his shoulders is going to burn and peel for sure, but that’s the tainted layer of him, the part that failed. Everything hurts: his muscles, his skin; that secret part of his heart that he’s always reserved for Iris and Noctis alone. But he presses on, going through the motions. Set after set.

It feels like breathing is a knife to his chest now. He’s gasping for air as he rounds the rock, kicking up sweltering dust that sticks to his desperate lungs and coats the inside of his mouth. 

This is right. This is good.

He returns to his spot, grimacing at the mess he’s made there. The sun is baking into the earth where he’s been working, making short work of the sweat that he’s left there. Even as he watches, the dark patches in the sand turn light at the edges, eaten up by the hungry star above them. There are patches that won’t lighten, though, and they turn the sandy ground a rusty brown in the indentations where his hands and feet have been. Like a man in a dream, Gladio slowly raises his hands, staring down at them. He hadn’t even realized that he’d broken the skin. 

He flops down on his back in the dust, staring up at the sun. It glares into his eyes with a direct fierceness, and he tosses an arm across his face. His arm jostles his nose as he does it, and he’s aware all at once at how burned the skin on the bridge is now. He huffs out another breath, trying to get his breathing under control.

_ Gods _ , he aches.

It’s a welcome feeling. He doesn’t think he’s ever pushed himself so hard. This is truly what he’d needed. 

This is right.

This is good.

He stands with a soft grunt of effort and heads back to where his shoes are. They’ll get stained now, but he isn’t quite in the mood to get picky with it. Besides, people will start to ask questions if he walks into Hammerhead barefoot, trailing blood and dust in his wake. He doesn’t really want to cause a fuss. He can take care of himself. 

Back along the trail he goes, passing the resting place of the hunter who got left out on their own. Then the site of their battle, with the sound of Noct’s excited, breathy laugh echoing in his ears. Ten year old memories shake them loose from the attic of his mind where he’s kept them, breaking down the carefully constructed compartments he’s made over time. Gladio grits his teeth and tries to focus on the feeling of salt and dust in his hands, grounding himself in the sting. It helps a little, even if it brings his mind to his dream instead. Blood on his hands, blood on the wheel, blood where it should never be. 

He’s treading back into Hammerhead and hoping that there’ll be enough power in the solar panels to heat the water in the communal shower. He rolls one of his shoulders experimentally, testing out the limits there. The muscles scream at him the second he tries any movement that’s too major. Yeah. Not good. He winces and heads onward.

“That can’t possibly be good for you.”

_ You’ve got to be kidding. _

Aranea Highwind’s voice is recognizable anywhere. Who else could have that sort of casual drawl after years spent in total darkness? Gladio turns and faces her, frowning at that look on her face. He can’t describe it. It’s just-

A look.

He hates it.

She’s dressed for the heat in a wholly impractical black ensemble, but at least her silvery hair is tied back. She looks older than the last time he’d seen her - what was it, three years ago? - as if her time on rescue assignment across the sea has changed her in some fundamental way. Off with the Immortal, and look what happens to her. Her eyes are just a little bit haunted looking, despite her casual air, and they’re lined in a way that finally suggests her age. All the same, she carries herself with unwavering certainty.

Gladio had never really understood his friends’ fascination with the mercenary. All he knows is that she’d started showing up to help them out from time to time. Something must have passed between them while he was undertaking the Trial of Gilgamesh. She and Ignis have kept in touch since then, coordinating long rangings into the darkness with the rest of the council in Lestallum. And Prompto - he’s another story entirely, what with his all-too-clear devotion to her. 

Well, Gladio can’t say he can see the appeal.

“What do you want?” he growls at her.

Aranea looks him in the eye, then makes a show of letting her eyes travel up and down the length of his body. Gladio’s tempted to hunch his shoulders a little bit. Her gaze makes him feel exposed; it’s like she can see everything. Like she knows. She drawls, “I’m here for what everyone else is here for. His Royal Majesty, savior of the world, light of Lucis, yadda yadda, et cetera.” 

Gladio folds his arms up against his chest. “Do I look like him to you?” he asks.

She wrinkles her nose. “Is this your royal bodyguard workout? Because if so, I have a few recommendations. For example-”

“Highwind.”

“Have you considered not doing it in the actual desert?” Aranea bulldozes right past his interjection like she hasn’t heard him. She definitely has, of course. “Would be a shame if you dropped dead trying to save your king, Muscles.”

_ That’s the idea _ , his mind supplies slyly, and he pushes it aside with a roll of the eyes. Six above, his arms are sore. They feel like he’s gotten pulled apart by an Iron Giant or squeezed in the cold dead coils of a Naga’s tail. “Thanks for the advice,” he drawls back. Two can play at this game, right?

“Hm.” Was she hoping to get a rise out of him? “Glad I could impart some of my trademark wisdom. Now, where’s the Chosen King?”

He speaks on impulse. “Get in line, Highwind. I’m going to see him.” Oh. He is. He’s doing this.

Aranea narrows her eyes slightly, but that doesn’t even begin to diminish the feeling that she’s seeing right through him. But then she shrugs. “Suit yourself. I’ve got to talk to Cor anyway.” She turns on her heel - Gladio still thinks it’s impractical that she wears actual high heels to fight - and saunters off with the easy grace of a woman completely in control.

Gladio thinks he hates her.

And now he’s talked himself into going to see Noctis. He can’t just...not go. That’d be some sort of admission of defeat on his part, and he  _ cannot _ be outdone by the likes of Aranea Highwind. So he squares his shoulders, ignoring the screaming in his muscles and the fact that he’s a mess of dust and sweat and blood, and he heads over to the massive building that houses the garage and hospital.

The shady dimness of the garage is a welcome respite from the sweltering sun he’s been working under. Cindy gives him a look that, while not openly hostile, is more than a little shocked to see him in here. He’s really only been this way under cover of night, when he could be assured that Prompto would be asleep so he could duck his head inside Noct’s room to watch his king sleep. Cindy knows that, of course, and she must also know that he’s yelled at Prompto. The two of them are close enough that he must’ve told her. He should have expected this. Gladio nods to her, acknowledging her and her disapproving frown, and gets a small wave of admission that directs him towards the back of the garage.

Small victories.

Gladio makes his way into the dark, shadowy, cool section of the garage where the scent of perfume and motor oil gives way to cheap antiseptic. There are other rooms, with blue fabric wrapped around the handles, where other hunters surely are resting, recovering from the wounds they’ve sustained during the Night. And there are rooms marked with red where people formerly afflicted with the Scourge are recovering from having it burned out of their bodies with the dawn. But there’s a door further down, at the end of the hall, one marked with a tattered banner of black. 

The king’s room.

Gladio pushes the door open.

Oh,  _ gods _ .

Noctis looks up at him with surprise blooming in his eyes, and Gladio’s knees go weak.

He’d seen Noct while he was asleep. He’d seen the thick bandages and the scarring. He’d seen the startling redness of his veins where he’s set himself ablaze with the magic of the gods. But nothing could have prepared him for the chilling magnetism of Noctis’s gaze. 

It’s like something out of a fever dream, like Noctis has one foot in their reality and one foot stuck in the place they’d pulled him from. Somehow, it makes the guilt in his chest turn into a daemon that crows for reparation. More penance, more work, to make this right.

“Hey, Your Majesty,” Gladio says, and even though his heart is pounding he can’t help the fondness that finds its way into his voice. Noct’s alive, he’s here; he’s safe.

Noctis raises an eyebrow. He really does look like the king. “Gladio,” he greets him softly. “Thanks for coming by.”

“Of course.” Gladio lets out a long breath. “It’s good to see you awake and moving.” And it is. It really is.

“Small victories,” Noctis says, but it just sounds rehearsed. Like he’s repeating something that Prompto’s said to him in the past.

Gladio nods dumbly.

Noctis wrinkles his nose, looking him up and down. “What’ve you done to yourself?”

Gladio looks down at himself. “Exercise.”

“Hell of a workout.” Noctis almost laughs, but there’s not a trace of a smile on his face. His eyes hold nothing but misery and flame. All that comes out is a huff of air that suggests what might have been there if this had been another time, another Hammerhead; another king. Then his eyes focus on something in the middle distance, and he falls silent.

“You were holding me.” 

“When?” Gladio breathes. He knows. He wants to hear Noct say it.

Noctis blinks at him, and in the heartbeat when his mismatched eyes are covered Gladio thinks he feels a twinge of relief. He understands now why Ignis had been so broken up after Noct’s awakening. “When I woke,” he says simply. “In the Citadel, when I was dead. I remember.” His voice is dreamlike and soft, like he’s not yet come back to himself.

“Yeah, Noct, I was.” He can still feel Noctis’s weight in his arms, lighter than he ever should have felt. He still remembers the cool heavy slide of King Regis’s sword out of Noct’s still cold body. He knows. He’ll always know. The image repeats itself over and over in his head, playing like a dark and twisted movie of memory until it nearly superimposes over Noct’s face. Except for the eyes. He can’t stop thinking about those eyes.

He steps back abruptly. “I have to go.”

“Oh.” Noctis’s eyes turn miserable - the first real emotion he’s shown since Gladio’s gotten here - but Gladio barely lets himself see it.

He retreats to the doorway, then to the hallway, and then he turns tail and borderline  _ flees,  _ trying to be anywhere but there. Anywhere but where the specter of his dead king waits for him, reminding him of something he’s trying to forget.

Past Cindy, past the crippled husks of cars, and into the burning sunlight he goes.

The people of Lucis have finally emerged into the light around him, and Hammerhead is bustling. He ignores them, trying to tune out the excited calls of recognition from the refugees who are passing through on their way to Insomnia. They know him as the King’s Shield, as the hunter who’d led rookies through the training to become a force to defend the people in the Night. They know him as a legend. They think he’s a hero.

He’s not that man anymore.

He can’t help the desperate little half-run that he uses to get across the tarmac, although his legs scream in protest. He’s exhausted and sweaty and all he wants is to get some peace and quiet and nurse the wounds he’s given himself. In the Night, things had been easier. He’d been able to compartmentalize and block out everything but survival. Now, the sun has melted the ice cages he’s put around his fears, and he wants nothing more than to turn tail and run from them. But he’s a sword. Swords cut down their obstacles.

Safe in the half-light of his shared caravan, Gladio shoves his hand into his pants pocket. The cuts on his palms protest at the treatment, but he grits his teeth and digs around until he pulls out his prize: the dog tag from the desert. He rubs a thumb along the impression of letters in the light metal, but recognition doesn’t come to him any more than it had when he’d found it. Another person unclaimed, then. He places the tag in Dave’s bag. Dave’ll know what to do with it; he always does. It clinks rustily against the aluminum dog tags of so many others that they’ve lost. This is all they have left of the people Gladio has trained and failed to protect: metal and ashes.

Gladio lets out a long breath and turns to his sword. It’s still leaning against the wall of the caravan, glinting innocently up at him. It looks so odd to see it disused; it should be resting in the armiger where it belongs, filling the ranks beside the weapons of his king. But it’s here, and he can’t touch it. Not yet.

There’s a clatter behind him and the crackle of gravel under wheels. Gladio turns to meet it.

Prompto rolls up the makeshift ramp into the caravan, nearly running headlong into Gladio. He stops just short with a soft “oh” of surprise, staring up at Gladio warily.

Gladio meets his gaze and raises an eyebrow. Prompto’s shaved at last, it seems, and it makes him look several years younger. The bags under his eyes remain, though, and it seems they always will. Has he always looked that pale? He’s got the same red veins as Noctis, but they’re nearly everywhere, stretching along his bare arms and up his neck. They’re fainter, though, and they have a feral sort of beauty where they run alongside the freckles on Prompto’s cheeks.

And the leg. He can’t  _ look _ at the leg, but he knows it’s there; knows it’s the reason Prompto is sitting in the chair. He can’t look. Not yet.

All Gladio can see is Prompto in the backseat, clinging to life as poison burns its way through his body.

But he musters up his courage and says, “I’m sorry. For earlier.”

Prompto actually looks shocked. Gladio supposes he should feel guilty for that. He’d told Prompto off. And he does feel more than a little ashamed for it. He rubs at the back of his neck with a torn-up hand, waiting for some sort of reaction.

To his credit, Prompto recovers well from his initial surprise. He smiles nervously - just a flash of teeth, really. “Thanks,” he stammers. “Can’t stay mad at you, Gladio. You know that.”

Gladio nods. “Good.” He doesn’t smile, not really, but it’s close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art of sad workout Gladio can be found [here](http://triplehelix.tumblr.com/post/165526220104/guess-weve-still-got-a-little-fight-left-in-us).


	5. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return.

_ Gods _ , Leide is hot.

Prompto frowns at the outside world that he can see in his camera screen. Everything is orange or beige or bright blue. The blue is courtesy of the sky, and  _ certainly _ not because of any water. Because there isn’t any. At all. It’s really, really hot. At least the air is whistling through the half-open windows of the car they’re in, giving them some sort of relief.

The camera clicks, capturing the image of an insect that’s decided to hold onto the car window, legs clinging tenaciously to the glass. Who really needs six whole legs, anyway?

Prompto brings the camera down from the window and clicks through the photos, frowning. He’s running low on storage, and photo paper and memory cards aren’t exactly a gil a dozen anymore. He’ll have to start thinking about scrapping some of the shots he has if he wants to be able to take any new ones. Curious, he flicks forward in the gallery so that the photos roll over to the first one on this particular card. It’s from about six years back: just a snapshot of Hammerhead with its massive fences and ever-shining blue lights. It makes the place look like it’s invincible.

There are a few others, taken sporadically during the Night. In the darkness, when survival was the only goal, there was never really much time for fun. But Prompto had always carried the camera, so he’s still got proof that they were still trying to be human during all of this. There’s Cindy, laughing at a headlight wiring mistake that made a car look like it was frantically winking. And Talcott, staring in wonder up at Cor as he learned how to hold his first longsword. A rare selfie of Prompto and Aranea, looking up at the camera with expressions varying from excitement to resignation. A few shots of Gladio and Ignis, when they’d crossed paths.

Then the ones from only a short time ago.

The look on Ignis’s face after getting off the phone with Talcott. He’s taken his glasses off, and there’s something in his pale gray-green eye that shines with a wild, breathless hope.

Noctis in Hammerhead, a king reborn after ten years in waiting. Prompto had had so little time to memorize the lines of his new face and the too-wise expression in his eyes before everything had changed and this Noctis had vanished for good. But it’s captured here in the photo, and he’s lucky to have it.

Gladio, staring down at his sword. He’s in his favorite corner of Hammerhead, the one that he thinks that the others don’t know about, but Prompto had found him anyway. 

There’s one of Cindy with the brightest smile on her face and her cheeks streaked with motor oil and tear tracks. After all, the three of them hadn’t been the only ones waiting for Noctis to return. Prompto remembers her voice wavering when she’d told him she had to go tell Cid that the king had arrived.

Their last campfire, crackling with a rare warm light. And behind it, lit by the red-orange tongues of flame, sits Prompto’s best friend. Prompto’s king. His eyes are cast to the sky, unaware of the camera being turned to him. There’s a strange sort of tranquility evident in the set of his mouth and the way his hands rest easily on his knees. Had Noctis already made his peace? Was he already prepared to go to his death and meet once more with those he’d lost?

And Prompto’s favorite photo, the most recent before his photographs of the dawn world: a photo he’d insisted on taking, just before setting out to reclaim Insomnia. It’s a group photo: Noctis, sitting with a straight back in one of the camping chairs, clad in his kingly raiment. Around him, behind him, stand the three of them in their Kingsglaive uniforms. None of them are smiling. But they’re together, and they might not be happy, but this is proof of their birthright and their ascension, a testament to the time before the dawn.

Prompto loves these photos.

Some of them will have to go.

Weakened now by the poison and the elimination of the dregs of the Scourge from his body, Prompto spends his days photographing the reconstruction of Lucis. There are traces of the nation it’d once been scattered along the roads on the way back to Insomnia, and Prompto hopes that the motion blur from the car doesn’t hurt the quality of his photos. They’re all he has now. That, and Noct.

Noct’s quiet, more often than not. In the car with Prompto, he spends much of his time either asleep or staring out the window at the landscape outside. It’s his country now, after all.

It’s been a week since Noctis woke up. 

Ignis has only come around twice, and not even to Noct’s room. He meets Prompto outside, jaw tense with some emotion that Prompto can’t decipher - that’s Iggy’s strength, not his - and informs them of the plans as they change. Prompto had asked if Ignis would be in the car with them on the way to Insomnia, and Ignis’s jaw had set even more. 

“No, Prompto, I won’t. I have responsibilities elsewhere in the convoy.”

Prompto had left it at that, nodding with a smile forced onto his lips. 

Now they ride to Insomnia to reclaim their homeland. That’d been the mission all along: to take back the Crown City from Niflheim. That had been their rallying cry as they’d dragged themselves through miserable caves and slogged through muck and blood. Prompto loves the Crown City, he does, and to come home to it and see it in daylight for the first time since their departure will be a sort of landmark for him. But it feels a little empty, like they’d forgotten what Insomnia was to them even as they strove to take it back.

It feels even worse knowing that the last time they were in Insomnia, the city had taken something precious from them.

Prompto powers down the camera for now.

They’re passing the war-torn ruins of one of Niflheim’s bases when Noctis finally speaks. "Where's Ignis?" he asks softly. 

Prompto raises an eyebrow. "He's around. A couple cars back, I think. Hasn't wanted to bother you since you woke up."

Noctis grimaces. "I remember. I told him to go away."

"Why?" Prompto asks, because really, he wants to know. He's had his suspicions, and Ignis must too, but Ignis isn't talking to him. All he's had to go on have been terse frowns and clipped answers out of necessity. What's been the thing that's made Ignis so miserable? What's made Ignis  _ hate _ him?

"I remember," Noctis says. His voice has a lower tone to it, as dangerous as it had been when he'd first banished Ignis from his room. "I remember Insomnia. I know it was him. His hands on my hands, I remember them."

Prompto remembers too. He can still see Ignis’s hands, shaking and covered in poison and Prompto’s blood, clutching at Noctis’s pale cold ones like they were the only thing keeping him grounded. The flash of disappointment in those few moments between the destruction of the phoenix down and Noct’s first breath. “I was there too, though.” He was. He was, and he can’t ever forget it.

“Yes, you were,” Noctis agrees, “but Ignis knew what he was doing.”

“Oh,” Prompto stutters, trying to make sense of that, and Noctis blinks and turns his gaze back out the window to the bland orange landscape flying past.

The car falls silent again. Dustin, who’s driving, has the tact to stay quiet. 

It’s another hour in the car until they reach the gate.

It’s foggy today despite the heat in Leide, like there’s a storm threatening to unleash its wrath on the island city. The massive steel bridge to Insomnia is shrouded in a milky haze at its tips, looking for all the world like the great teeth of some metal beast. The car trundles up to the gate leading up to it, pausing and idling in its cracked steel shadow.

A few hunters from a few cars back get out and stalk over to the gate. There’s another hunter already standing there, holding a rusted gun, and she waves the people from the convoy over. The hunters have a quick discussion, inaudible through the glass of the car windows, and then the woman from the gate shoots a look at the car that Prompto and Noctis are in. Her eyes are wide.

Even though he knows she probably can’t see him, Prompto sinks down in his seat, face red-hot. Gods, he’s thirty years old. He’s been a friend of royalty for years now. Isn’t he too old to be embarrassed by this sort of thing? He hazards a glance over at Noctis, who’s taken notice of the stop and the attention and is peering out of the windshield with a furrowed brow. “Don’t know why they have to tell her it’s me,” he mumbles, scratching idly at the wiry tufts of overgrown stubble at his jaw. 

“You’re the king,” Prompto says, because it’s obvious. And it’s not like they’re being subtle about it. There’d been much insistence that Noctis’s car - a beat up old thing but the  _ best _ beat up old thing Cindy could scare up - be equipped with a black flag. Prompto’s pretty sure someone’s also painted a Lucian crest on the hood. The Lucians, it seems, still want to welcome their king in the best way they can.

Outside, the woman with the gun stands at attention and presses her fist to her chest in a salute. She’s facing the car; she’s facing her king.

The hunters who had gotten out of the cars now stream back to them, but on their way they press quick fists to their chests. As they pass the car, Prompto can see their lips forming the familiar honorific of “Majesty”. Noctis hums a bit in his seat, acknowledging their presence, and he raises his left hand and gently pats it against his chest. He winces at the contact with his bandages, but the way that the eyes of the hunters light up make it worth it, at least to Prompto. And yes, there’s a flicker of something in Noct’s eyes as well. Prompto hurriedly frames him in the camera and takes a photo before Noctis puts his hand back down.

The woman at the gate waves them through, and Dustin puts the car back into gear to take them into Insomnia.

The bridge is longer than Prompto remembers. When they’d been walking along it to confront Ardyn, it had just been another trek to another battle. And Prompto had wanted to savor every moment of it, to hold onto the memory of Noctis before he died. Noctis may have made his peace, but Prompto hadn’t yet. If anything, the walk across the bridge had seemed far too short.

Now, driving across the aging steel in broad daylight, it feels like the world is flying past in slow motion. Below them, the water glitters with hints of life that survived in the darkness below. The fog is thicker now that they’re in the midst of it over the water, and the looming bridge above them looks more and more like a dungeon with every cable they pass. 

“Back here,” Noct says faintly. “It always comes back to Insomnia.”

Prompto glances at him out of the corner of his eye and says nothing. He doesn’t need to. They both know what waits for them in the Crown City. They'd both left something behind that day.

It takes them a while. Many of the overpasses and main roads through and out of the city have been destroyed in the Fall or in the Night. Dustin expertly navigates them, frowning at the rubble he encounters. 

Prompto snaps a few photos through the windows, trying to capture this version of Insomnia that's been frozen in time. There are abandoned cars and discarded metal girders strewn across the roadway, and then there are massive pieces of stone. Prompto frowns at a particularly large piece. It looks like more than just a chunk of rock. 

It looks like a blade.

“The Old Wall,” Noctis says, voice tinged with wonder. “So it's true.”

And he's right: Prompto follows his gaze out of the opposite window and breathes out a sigh. There's a massive, hulking figure frozen beside the roadway, arm outstretched like it means to attack. There's the hilt of a sword in his hand. The Tall, maybe? The Mystic?

“‘Scuse me,” Prompto mutters, and he leans past Noctis to take a photo through the glass on Noct’s side of the car. The old king stares back at him, imperious and strong. “I can't imagine what it must have been like to see them in action.”

“Like the armiger coming alive,” Noctis replies. And yeah, he's captured it. Prompto can almost see what it would look like.

They pass the frozen body of the old king and continue on into the city.

The final stretch of road leading to the Citadel is the most populated. There are people standing out on the cracked sidewalks, staring at the convoy as it arrives. Already, in the two weeks since dawn had broken, people had started streaming out of their hiding places to head back to Insomnia. There aren’t many of them - a couple hundred by Prompto’s most generous estimate - but even that number is staggering after the decimation that the Night brought to them. 

They’re all smiling.

Prompto brings his camera up to his face and starts snapping as many photographs as he can.

So many of them look older than they should. They’re in tatters in some cases and freshly recovered fabrics in others. There are even a few people with the same red veins as Prompto scattered throughout the crowd. Former victims of the Starscourge, cured by the timeliness of their king’s arrival. In some cases, it doesn’t even look like Noctis  _ is _ their king: there are people that look like Prompto among the gathered folks. Some look a little  _ too _ similar, but Prompto won’t dwell on that. But old allegiances don’t mean much anymore, and it seems that they’ve made the choice to welcome the King of Light back into his kingdom.

Prompto glances over at Noctis to gauge his reaction. Noct stares out the window with his lips parted in wonder, looking at all of the people who have gathered to welcome him home.

“So many of them,” Noctis murmurs. “So many survived.”

“Yeah, Noct,” Prompto says. “Yeah, we made it through.”

The stream of people continues as they drive by, and the ones behind the convoy start to move. They’re following the cars. They’re following the king home.

The Citadel looms into view, mountainous and beautiful. Once, Prompto had felt intimidated by this place. Now, it just makes him feel sad. The once-soaring towers of white stone are crumbling in places, and the palace looks incomplete without the bright light of the Crystal shooting up into the sky to create the Wall. The Night had obscured so much of this in dust and daemons that this is Prompto’s first time seeing the Citadel as it truly is.

Dustin pulls the car around the looping drive and parks it right in front of the stairs. The other cars in the convoy stop behind them, filling the plaza with the sound of engines and life. Behind them, the common people stream into the plaza, ready for a glimpse of the king who’d saved them all.

It’s all so much that Prompto needs to get this nervous energy out. He tries to find a way to express it, to bring them back to the way things had been. He’s here to be Noct’s light, and as his best friend, he has to bring him through this.

“We’re home!” he exclaims, and he grins back at Noctis.

The king looks back at him with eyes haunted by magic and time, and he says nothing. 

Prompto stares up at the ruins of the Citadel. It’s for the best that Noct hadn’t said anything, really. It’s saving them both the effort. He’s not really all that excited, now that he’s here. The smile hurts his cheeks anyway.

Dustin comes around to the side door with Prompto’s wheelchair. He at least has the good grace to let Prompto open the door himself. Gods, it’s so inconvenient that he’s sitting on the right side of the car, but the left has always been Noct’s side and he hadn’t wanted to impose. He’s got this. Really.

“Prompto,” Dustin says, a little uncomfortably. “My hand, if you will.”

“I’m fine,” he insists, levering himself out of the car on his hands. He places his left leg on the ground outside after a bit of twisting, sitting so that he’s facing Dustin. The chair is right  _ there _ , but getting to it is going to require some form of standing, which he’s not quite good at yet. He can do this, though. 

He bats away Dustin’s waiting hand. Okay, that’s step one. He doesn’t need help. 

Step two is actually getting to the chair. Which, okay. It’s right there. Prompto braces his hands against the door and pushes himself up into a semi-standing position, emerging into the sun.

The chair is  _ right there _ .

He takes his left hand off the car and tries to inch his left foot forward.  _ Ha, best foot forward. _ He’s still clutching the doorframe with his right hand, but he has to let go if he wants to make it to the chair. Prompto takes a deep breath and pushes off from the car, swaying dangerously towards the chair.

But nobody is holding the chair because Dustin had been trying to  _ help _ him, and so when Prompto wildly grasps for the handle, the chair goes rolling off across the plaza, and Prompto goes down.

Prompto has done a lot of things in his life. Some of them were very embarrassing, and a lot of them were insignificant, and a few of them were pretty awesome. But this was supposed to be the best moment of his life. He was supposed to come back to his home and smile as the daylight streamed through his city. He was supposed to be a hero.

And here he is, face down in the dust.

Prompto sputters, trying to get the dust out of his mouth. His cheeks are too hot, and he can feel the warmth spreading to his ears and neck. The stump of his leg twinges with pain, protesting at Prompto’s rough treatment of it. 

Gods, he hates this.

Blinking away the angry tears that threaten to spill over onto his cheeks, Prompto props himself up on his elbows and hazards a look around.

They’re all looking at him.

Hunters and citizens alike are standing quietly in the plaza, staring down at him. There’s a ripple of whispers through the crowd, like they’ve recognized him and are disappointed with what they see. Prompto glances over his shoulder and there’s Gladio not far away, pointedly not looking at him. And Ignis at his side, frowning like he knows what’s happened even though he can’t see it. Prompto clenches his fists and starts trying to get up. It’s hard with only one leg as leverage, though, and he curses lowly under his breath.

Why is he such a mess?

Noctis is there, bending to help him up. Dustin is hovering anxiously over his shoulder, making vaguely nervous sounds. Poor guy looks like he might have a heart attack, despite definitely having seen things ten times worse than some thirty year old hack falling out of a car. Now that Prompto thinks about it, Dustin really doesn’t act all tough like most Crownsguard do. Is it a front? Some people do that to make their enemies underestimate them. That could be the game that Dustin is playing: the long game. Maybe it is. Huh.

Oh. Noct is saying something, urgently like he’s said it before. Prompto blinks and shakes his head a bit, trying to get Noctis back into his awareness.

“Sorry?”

“Take my hand,” Noctis repeats. And - yup. He’s holding out a hand. It’s his right one, the one with the veins and pale gray tint to the skin in between.

Prompto takes it gingerly, absentmindedly worrying that Noct’s gray skin will turn to ashes if he holds it too hard. But Noct’s grip is strong, and he pulls Prompto up carefully. Prompto flinches at a sudden hand on his back, but it’s just Dustin, and he lets the two of them guide him to his chair. Prompto hates the chair. He really, really does, but at this exact moment he wants nothing more than to curl up in its seat and hide from the entire world. 

“You okay?” he asks when he sees the way that Noctis grimaces and rubs at his chest. Pulling Prompto up must have aggravated the wound there.

Noctis nods grimly, and then his eyes narrow. “Should be asking you the same thing.”

“Nah, I’m good. One less foot to trip over, huh, Noct?” It’s a bad joke and he knows it. Noctis must too, because his perpetual frown deepens. Prompto rubs at the back of his neck and frowns down at his lap. “I’m fine,” he insists quietly.

Noctis sighs. “If you’re sure.” He takes a few steps so that he’s behind Prompto, and then he places his hands on the handles of the chair. The whispers in the plaza begin again.

Prompto sits up and turns to look at Noct. “I’ve got it,” he says. “C’mon, Noct, I can push myself.“ His cheeks are burning again.

“Let me help you,” Noctis insists stonily. He meets Prompto’s eyes with a determined two-tone stare. “You’re my friend.”

“Your friend who can  _ push himself, _ ” Prompto points out. “You’re the king. You shouldn’t come back to the Citadel like this.”

“It’s just a building, Prompto.” Gods, Noctis sounds so exhausted. His eyes flick up to the half-broken building looming above them and then back to Prompto. “And besides, when have you ever cared about me being king?”

Was that a joke? Did Noctis just joke with him? Prompto is stunned enough by this maybe-development that he falls silent and hunches over in his chair. He’s gripping the hand rests too hard, he thinks. Taking his silence as acceptance, Noctis starts to push the chair, and then they’re heading across the plaza.

What a picture they must make, the two of them. The reborn King of Lucis helping his crippled bodyguard. Prompto would laugh if he could. It just seems so delightfully backwards.

He twists in his chair, searching for something a little more warm. There’s Ignis, speaking urgently with Dustin a few car lengths away. The two of them make a little matching set, both clad in more formal wear than many of the other hunters or former Crownsguard members. And there’s Gladio, following the two of them at a sedate pace. He’s got a stony look on his face when his eyes fall on Noctis, like the sight of the king hurts him, but he’s got his greatsword resting on his shoulder, ready to take down anything that would harm him. And the people behind them, the hunters and the citizens, are whispering. Prompto can catch snippets of words and phrases, like  _ hero _ and  _ chosen _ and  _ broken. _

Luckily, there’s a stone ramp beside the great marble steps that lead into the Citadel. Noctis pushes him up slowly, bringing them under the shadow of the palace. They reach the top and Prompto says, “Noct, you should face the people.”

“Like this?” Noctis asks incredulously. And yeah, Noctis isn't looking exactly like a king right now. At least he’s in black, even if it is the faded black of soft hospital scrubs that had been salvaged from an Insomnia hospital.

Prompto turns a bit, meeting Noct’s eyes over his shoulder. Noctis looks stricken, and his blue and red eyes are blown wide, like he'd been hoping to slip into the Citadel without a fuss. “They have to see their king alive. They won't care what you're wearing. They know what you've done for them.” 

Noctis blinks down at him. “You almost sound like Ignis,” he says, and he lets go of the wheelchair handles.

Prompto’s left wondering if that was a compliment or an insult while Noctis strides to the center of the platform atop the stairs. The crowd below them bursts out into cheers immediately. Prompto glances over at Ignis and Gladio. Gladio’s whispering in Ignis’s ear, probably telling him what's happening. Ignis murmurs something back that looks suspiciously like he's saying “I wish I could see him.”

“King Noctis!” somebody cries, and then that's the mantra that's taken up by the crowd. It's repeated over and over, swelling to a massive echoing rhythm in the center of their burned-out city.

Prompto picks up his camera - blessedly undamaged in his fall - and takes a single picture. He's got the perfect angle for it: Noctis is silhouetted against the surging muted colors of the crowd below, lit by the kind warm light of the sun above. 

He looks like a king.

And then the moment passes, and Noctis raises a hand in farewell, and the crowd’s voices dull to a muted roar. Noctis turns and heads back to Prompto. Prompto pointedly doesn't mention the streak of fresh wetness on one of his cheeks. Noctis takes hold of the wheelchair handles again and pushes him inside the Citadel.

When they get inside and the sounds of the crowd fade away with distance, Noctis lets go of the wheelchair, letting Prompto manually turn himself around to face his friend. “You did really well,” Prompto tells him honestly. “Even got a picture.” He holds up the camera with a little grin.

Noctis doesn't smile - he doesn't really do that anymore - but something flickers at the corners of his lips and in his eyes. “Thanks, Prom.” He turns, eyes seeking out the two figures standing quietly at the edge of the room. There're Ignis and Gladio, a unit brought together by some common guilt and shame. Noctis opens his mouth like he's about to call out to them, but then a shadow seems to cross his face and he stays quiet. 

“I'm going up to the throne room,” Prompto blurts into the quietness. The other hunters and retainers in the room seem to take the hint and start quietly talking amongst themselves, laying out the groundwork for the reclamation of the Citadel.

“Why?”

“I just...I want to see it.” Prompto picks at his nail. It was a bad idea anyway.

Noctis sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I won't stop you,” he says, “but I can't go up there yet.”

Prompto shoots a look over to where the other Crownsguard are. Cor’s showed up somewhere along the way, and he's scanning the room with a practiced eye. He’ll keep Noctis under watch while Prompto’s gone. “Sure thing. Just be safe, okay?”

Noctis gives him a curious look. “Yeah. You too.”

Prompto nods and pushes himself away, listening to the echoing crunch of his wheels on the rubble beneath them. He can feel Noct’s gaze burning into his back.

He takes the elevator up alone.

The room with all the paintings of the prophecy seems hollow and cold now. Prompto blinks, and suddenly the world is dawn-fresh around him and he’s watching himself staggering out of the throne room with a barely-conscious Noctis in tow. He’s bleeding and limping, and Gladio is just barely hanging onto him. The four of them stumble to the elevator, brushing past the paintings they’ve defied. Prompto almost wants to stop them.

Then he blinks, and the illusion is gone. He's just a guy without a leg, alone in an empty hall in an abandoned castle.

He grimaces as a twinge of pain shoots up his right thigh, radiating from the spot where the doctor had deemed his body a lost cause. It feels like his leg is still there, resting beside the left one as always. But the space there is empty to his eyes, and the feeling is just a sharp ache that takes the shape of the thing he’s lost.

It’s just a limb, but it feels like so much more.

This is the Crown City, right? City that never sleeps, city where all of Prompto’s dreams of friendship had come true? 

City where those dreams had been crushed?

Insomnia is a city of miracles and magic. If any place can let him heal, it’s here. If any place can make Gladio happy or give Ignis peace or bring a smile back to Noctis’s face, it’s here.

They’re here now. They’ve taken back Insomnia.

The rest is just a matter of time.


	6. noctis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions are answered.

He can’t sleep.

There's something trembling in the air tonight. It feels suspiciously like the way that magic had done when it thrummed through Noct's veins. But this feeling isn't trying to escape through his fingers this time; instead, it hovers in the space where he knows his father’s sword had been. It doesn’t  _ hurt _ , or at least that’s not the cause of the feeling. Because it does hurt. A lot.

But the feeling of phantom magic runs through his body, radiating from the spot where the Sword of the Father had forced him to fulfill his destiny. Unused to the feeling of magic now that he doesn’t feel the connection to the Crystal, Noct bites his lip against the intensity of the power in his bones. The finger where he’d worn the Ring burns too, like it knows that Noctis is trying to desperately grab at the magic that it’s robbed from him.

Noctis tries to close his eyes and sleep anyway. The city is blessedly quiet for the first time in years. The winding halls of the Citadel and the crumbling streets outside aren’t nearly populated enough to start generating any sound. Besides, the people of Insomnia won’t be coming outside in the night. They’d lived too long in darkness to willingly spend their waking hours traversing abandoned streets.

He sits up in bed. This isn’t working. He isn’t going to sleep any time soon.

He swings his feet over the edge of the bed and sits for a moment, placing his elbows on his knees. The movement aggravates the stab wound and tugs at his bandages, and he hisses a bit at the pain, but it’s welcome, in a way. The pain gives him something to hold onto, to dig his teeth into so he can bite back the screams he wishes he could unleash. They’re here even now, clawing at his chest and throat.

For now, he ignores them.

Noctis looks around the room. His old rooms had been destroyed in the Fall, and his apartment was completely out of the question, so he’s been put in his father’s old bedroom. It’s actually just the king’s room, so it’s not Regis’s, per se, but it still feels like Noctis is trespassing somewhere he does not belong. His father’s ghost seems to hang in this room even after ten years and the destruction of the Crystal.

But it’s not his ghost. The spirit of King Regis has departed Lucis for good. He won’t be coming back for Noctis again.

So Noctis is king now.

_ King Noctis, call the survivors of the Night. _

He flinches away from the memory. Him? King? He’s hardly prepared for it. Ten years in stasis have muddled the memories of already hazy lessons. He tries to think of himself sitting in the cold, bare conference room, meeting with the Council and trying to rule an entire nation. That had always been Ignis’s role. To help him, to teach him, to be his eyes and ears and aid.

Ah. Ignis. Sensitive subject.

Noctis stands, physically distancing himself from the thought. He strides over to the window and throws aside the musty old curtains. The meager lights of a few lit buildings light up the night like pinpricks under the moon and stars. His city. His kingdom.

Insomnia is so different now.

If he looks out the window, the looming figure of a stone sword fills the cityscape below, a monument to the Fall of Insomnia. He squints at the hilt, trying to imagine what it had felt like in his hands. The Wise? The Mystic? Without the armiger at his disposal anymore, he can’t remember the arms of his ancestors. The blade just looks like any other sword.

He wishes he’d seen the Old Wall in its might.

That scratches at a tiny thought that’s been nagging him for ages. Ever since the reports of the Fall had come trickling in ten years ago, they’d been talking about massive stone statues of the ancient kings and queens rising up to defend their city. The Old Wall at its full potential, as Noctis had learned of it, was a weapon of great power, but it was controlled only by the wearer of the Ring of the Lucii. Noctis himself had felt its pull when he’d entered Insomnia for the first time, offering its spectral power to him as a gift to help destroy the Usurper. But its power was absolute and incredible; even Noctis had worried that using it would deplete him of magic that he  _ needed _ to bring back the dawn. 

And if he’d been too weak, what had his father done?

He should’ve asked him while he’d had time. It’d seemed like they’d had forever to talk, back then. Back-

Back in-

He shakes his head. He can’t think about this. Can’t think about the place he’d been for too long and not long enough, the place he’s supposed to be right now. He’s here now, back in the world he’d died for, and Luna and his father are worlds away. 

He needs water. He needs to cool off. He needs to extinguish this magical energy that’s burning through his body, begging him to let it loose. 

The room has an ensuite bathroom, and he makes his way over there, wincing at the twinge in his chest. He leans on the sink and turns the tap on. Luckily, they’ve gotten the plumbing back in order, and the water supply hadn’t been completely poisoned by the woes of Insomnia. Noctis splashes the water on his face, relishing in the chilliness of it. It doesn’t do much to soothe the hum of magic that crackles like ozone in his bones, but the shock of the coldness shakes his wandering mind back into awareness. It brings him back into Insomnia and this world.

When he looks up, he frowns.

The bathroom mirror is cracked and tarnished in places, but it does a good enough job, he supposes. 

He looks closely at the angry red lines that crisscross the right side of his face. They’re evidence of magic and some warped idea of purity, like he’d needed to be burned from the inside out to bring that fire back into their star. Like the star itself had used him to come back into the world. It certainly looks like it: the fiery red of his veins stands out in stark contrast to the dull gray of his skin. It looks like his entire right side is charred, covered in ashes and smoke. Noctis thinks, absently, that a wind might blow him away, taking the ash somewhere where nobody can point and stare and call him  _ hero. _

He can only hope.

He shifts, bowing his head to look down at his clasped fingers. The paleness of his left hand intertwines with the fierce red and gray of his right. Noctis idly wonders if the fire in his veins is the product of the astrals’ magic. Is that what brought him back?

Noctis looks up at the mirror again and inspects his right eye. It’s red, and disturbingly so. He’s seen the honey and amber of Gladio’s eyes, and the pale minty green of Ignis’s before he was blinded, and the shifting violet-blue of Prompto’s, but never a red like this. He almost wonders if he’s become like Ardyn, and that the red of his right eye is the same infernal glow of the eyes of MTs. But there are no daemons anymore, and the only magic left in the world is from the astrals who still watch over them. Noctis can feel the marks of the covenants on some deep part of himself where the Crystal’s magic had also lived. And Prompto had once showed him a picture after he’d received Ramuh’s blessing.

And his eyes had been red.

Is that what this is?

He knows he shouldn’t be abusing the summons like this, but he needs answers and he needs peace. Besides, the astrals owe him enough by now. After all, he’d been the one to save the world for them. He stares down at his hands and watches the veins in his right fingers glow with the only magic that he has left. He clenches his fingers into a fist and thinks  _ please, please, please. _

It’s not the way he’d usually do a summon, accustomed as he is to the heat of battle and the rush of power as an astral descends to lend him their power in all of their terrifying might. Now, in the silent confines of his bathroom, the rush of magic is smooth and cool through his veins, draining the pent-up tension and releasing it into his call.

The chill that creeps over him is undeniably familiar. He watches the mirror frost over and turns, shivering.

There she is. She’s in her guise as Gentiana today, but even without being in her purest form she exudes a chill in the same why that the Infernian had radiated heat and flame. He hasn’t seen her since the fight with Ifrit, when she’d saved them all from a fiery death at the hands of the Betrayer. She doesn’t look any different. Noctis isn’t sure why he’s expected her to.

“Gentiana,” he greets her. “Or. Shiva.”

“Chosen King,” she replies in kind, dipping her head. “Why have you called me here?”

“I need answers.”

Gentiana tilts her head to the side. Her eyes are open for once, chilling and wiser than he’d ever thought them to be. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier, in Tenebrae? How could he have ever thought her to be a mere messenger? Her expression doesn’t change, but her tone adopts a dangerous timbre as she tells him, “You are bold to demand such from an astral.”

“But you knew I would ask,” Noctis points out, “and you came anyway.”

That brings something like a smile to Gentiana’s unfathomable face. “You are clever, young king,” she says. “You are lucky that the Hydraean did not heed the call. She would not have humored you as I have.”

Noctis crosses his arms, trying to hide his shiver against the cold. “Would she even fit in the room?” he asks.

“All of the gods possess myriad forms and employ many messengers to do their bidding.” Gentiana takes a step towards him, and the chill intensifies. “But I have not come here to answer such trivialities. As a final favor to the Oracle, I have come to advise the King of Light as I advised her for many years. Fleuret and Caelum both have played their parts, and for that they are owed a great reward.”

“My part,” Noctis snorts. “The prophecy.”

Gentiana inclines her head. “Indeed.”

“I was born to die, wasn’t I?” He knows already. He knows, but he wants to hear it from her. He wants to hear it from one of the beings that thrust this destiny upon him.

Again, she nods. Her face is unchanging, neutral, and cold. If he’d been another man, or she’d been a less than an avenging goddess who had destroyed entire armies to avenge  Tenebrae, Noctis might rage at her. He might shake her shoulders and scream; he’d beg for his answers. But she is Shiva, and he is not that man. “The Crystal deemed you worthy when you were first presented. The Lucii and the astrals all had a say in your selection.”

“And dying fulfilled the prophecy, didn’t it?”

Another nod.

Noctis scrubs a hand across his eyes, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “So why allow them to bring me back? The Crystal was gone. The magic was already gone. I was already where I belonged. I was with my father. I was with  _ Luna _ .”

Gentiana crosses to the other side of the room, heading into the bedroom proper. She stands before the window, facing the recovering city and the stone remnants of the Old Wall outside. “The gods are beholden to none, but they answer the prayers of many.”

“Many,” Noctis spits. “You mean Ignis.” Something ugly rises in his chest at the thought, and the image flashes through his mind of Ignis hovering above him, looking like his world would collapse if Noctis hadn’t woken up. He remembers his first breath, the relief on Ignis’s face, and the rising terror in his own heart. Ripped away from a sleep in one sunlit throne room to be thrust back into the one he’d been killed in. A cruel joke, made worse by the joy in Ignis’s face when Noctis had taken gasping breaths of cursed air.

Did he not understand that Noctis had been happy to be dead _? _

She turns. “More than just him, young king. Many and more begged us for your safe return. For years, you lay dormant in the grip of Bahamut, and the world continued to remember you.” She frowns slightly, and the window behind her begins to frost over. “Harden not your heart to one who holds you dear.”

“He took me from Luna. From peace.” Noctis clenches and unclenches his fist, trying to soothe the aching magical hum that brought Gentiana to see him. 

“Your story was not yet complete. We would not leave Eos to flounder in the wake of the Usurper.”

“I left it to them,” Noctis says bitterly, but some of the fire has left his voice and his veins. He just feels drained. He’d cry, maybe, but his tears are frozen. “Why couldn’t they have been enough?”

Gentiana strides over to him, all effortless grace and barely leashed power. She places a slim, cold hand on his cheek. Noctis shivers at the touch, but finds himself leaning into it anyway. The touch of an astral reminds him of the bliss of the afterlife and the comfort of eternity. It reminds him of Tenebrae and sylleblossoms and the golden light of Luna’s magic. When he opens his eyes - he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them - Gentiana’s eyes are warm. She murmurs, “You need them, as they need you. You may not see now, touched as you are by your grief and pain, but in time you will understand. They were as much a part of the prophecy as you, and their fates are yet unwritten. Yours is intertwined with theirs.”

Noctis nods once. He knows. He’s always known. Somehow, it still hurts. The tears in the corners of his eyes are burning, trying to slide down his cheeks, but the Glacian holds them at bay and all he can do is let out a shuddering breath. “I’m scared,” he whispers.

“I know.” Her hand on his cheek is keeping him grounded, keeping him upright. Delicate as fresh-fallen snow and impervious as a massive glacier, her touch gives him the strength he sorely needs. “Now it is up to you to move past the dark shadow the Usurper has cast across you and your country.”

“Am I like him now?” He can see it the way he’d seen it all in the Crystal, through Bahamut’s eyes. Ardyn, sacrificing himself for his people and denied peace. Wandering the world, stricken down time and time again, only to rise again from the ashes. Everything is so familiar in hindsight, now that he’s been ripped from the warm embrace of peace. He’d seen Ardyn in his father’s face; is the Usurper’s likeness branded in his own soul?

Gentiana fixes her glacial gaze on him and shakes her head slowly. “Not in the ways that matter, young king.” She takes a few steps back. “Rule well, and peace will be granted to you once more.” The pale unfathomable ice of her eyes starts to turn bluer, and the dark lines of her robes start frost over. Noct’s hair stirs under the force of a chill blast of air that whips through the room, and his vision starts to cloud with snow.

“Gentiana,” he tries, and he reaches out to her. But his fingers get colder the closer they get to her, and she shakes her head with a sad, sad smile. 

“Until next time, King Noctis,” she says evenly. “When next we meet, perhaps your heart will be lighter.”

Her image shimmers and shatters, and then the shards burst into snowfall. It swirls around him, beautiful and pure, and where it touches his skin he shivers at the touch of ice and magic.

And then he's alone.

The faint blueness fades, replaced by the warm light of the lamps beside his bed. Despite it, Noctis feels colder than before. He wishes that she’d come back. Is that how Luna had coped with the knowledge of the destiny of herself and the Chosen King? She’d needed and astral to soothe her?

Knowing that he has her guidance, though, gives him a shred of hope. He has not yet been abandoned. Even now, Luna’s influence keeps him alive, keeps him going.

Back to the bathroom he goes. His face is flushed and hot, and with the disappearance of the Glacian has come the appearance of his tears. They run down his cheeks, hot and fat and unwanted, but he doesn’t sob, he  _ doesn’t. _ He’s the king. He doesn’t cry.

Gods, he looks like a mess. Bloodshot eyes, puffy from lack of sleep and lack of comfort. Face scarred by life and death. Tear tracks run down his face in shiny salt lines, betraying his pain to the world outside. 

He rubs at his jaw. Ardyn had facial hair too, if only a little stubble. 

He can’t have that. Can’t have anything tying him to that monster. He’d burn the Caelum blood out of his body if he could. If that was what it took to free him of the influence of the undead monster he’s shadowing, he’d do it. 

But for now, all he has is a razor.

It’s a simple decision, really, and easily executed. It’s in the cabinet behind the mirror. He holds it gingerly, inspecting it. The razor is a little rusted, but it’s survived well in the enclosed space of the bathroom cabinet. He really, really shouldn’t be using it, though. But he’s gone through worse, right? And there’s some sort of medicine left in the Citadel. A little rust won’t kill him. He pulls a can of cream from the cabinet as well and hopes that it doesn’t have an expiration date.

The cream is cool on his skin, soothing but nothing like the cleansing cold of Shiva.

As he drags the blade across his chin, he can remember his father’s hands holding his, letting him play at shaving. There’d been a lot of shaving cream and giggles. He’d been so small then. Had it been before or after he’d been chosen by the Crystal? He tries to remember the look in his father’s eyes, reflected by the mirror in front of them. Had Regis had that sad, weary look to his gaze back then? Had even that simple memory been tainted by the shadow of Noctis’s impending fate?

His father’s aftershave brings a knot of tears to his throat, threatening to spill out into sobs. The scent is achingly familiar. It smells like pine and cinnamon and home. It smells like his father’s embrace and long rides in the Regalia. In his later years, Regis hadn’t shaved nearly as much, and the scent had faded from his clothes, but the fact that he’s kept it brings a shaky smile to Noct’s face. He applies it carefully, desperate not to waste any of it. Things like this are precious now, irreplaceable and important. He wants to have this as long as possible. Wrapped up in his father’s scent like this, he feels the safest he’s felt since coming into the Citadel.

Gods, he misses him.

Without the hair, he doesn’t look as much like Regis anymore. But he doesn’t look like Ardyn either. His hair is straighter, and darker, and neither the Usurper nor his father had the stark scarlet of veins crisscrossing half their body as evidence of their sacrifice to the grand machinations of the astrals. No, he just looks like Noctis. 

A king, now.

Noctis puts the items away in the cabinet and closes it slowly. He spares another long look at his reflection before stalking back into the bedroom. It’s late now, long past midnight. The moon casts a silvery glow into the room, warring with the warm golden light of the lamps.

_ Luna? _

He sits back down on the edge of his bed, facing away from the still-frosted window which leads to the faint moonlight and stone remnants of the city outside. Insomnia at night is something he can’t look at right now. It’ll just bring him back to that night, and the darkness before the dawn he’d died for.

There’s his phone on the side table, glinting in the warm light of the lamp. He hasn’t used it in years. Would King’s Knight even work now? Would anyone even want to play? Noctis reaches over and picks up the little rectangle of metal and plastic. Everyone still uses phones, right? Would someone pick up if he called? Someone like Prompto, a comfort in the cold, empty castle?

Someone like Ignis?

He recalls Shiva's words.  _ One who holds you dear. _ Ignis, who had been raised to serve the royal family and its treasured son. Ignis, with his relentless devotion. Ignis, who had scarcely known a life without Noct. 

Was it really so absurd that Ignis would bring him back into his life?

He turns his phone over in his hands, staring at its blank black screen. Ignis is just a button press away. He’s still the first button on Noct’s speed dial. 

And he almost does it. He almost calls.

But it’s late, and his room his cold and lonely, and right now all he wants to do is curl up under his sheets and try to forget.

So that’s what he does.


	7. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploration and discovery.

Mornings still make Prompto feel like he’s dreaming.

The sun is still too bright, but at least it doesn’t make his skin crawl faintly with the discomfort of the Starscourge that once was in his veins. Now, he is cured and broken, and the only things the sun hurts are his eyes. The warmth seeps into his bones, reassuring him that this, at least, is real.

He can’t imagine how Ignis feels.

The halls of the Citadel echo uncomfortably as he rolls through them. There are breaches in the walls and windows here and there, and the wind whistles through them relentlessly. In the dark marble and soaring wooden frames of the hallways, the wind sings a haunting, broken melody. It sounds like some sort of lament, or a lullaby. In a city like Insomnia, though, who could ever sleep peacefully?

Not now. Not ever, maybe.

There are empty rooms lining the halls. At some doorways, there’s debris, like someone had taken refuge only to be taken by surprise. And there are scraps of clothing, evidence of the Starscourge’s inevitable creeping development. Idly, Prompto thinks of Ravus and the ugly hulking spectre of Emperor Aldercapt, and of Verstael Besithia. So many citizens, so many innocents, now shared their fate, lost to the cleansing light of the Lucii and the sun. Prompto reaches over the side of his chair and picks up a small shoe, one that probably belonged to a toddler at some point. A victim of the Scourge, turned to some small daemon.

Had he killed it? Had the sun?

He clutches tightly to the shoe, staring down at it with eyes that have gone suspiciously blurry. Such a little thing in the grand scheme of things, but it means more to Prompto than the damned Ring or all of the Royal Arms. Gods, he can’t keep this. He gently places it back where he found it, leaving it as a memorial to the child who had once owned it.

And he moves on.

He’s not heading to the destroyed wing where Noct’s old rooms are. He doubts that there’s much in there for Noct anyway; most of his stuff was in boxes from the apartment, ready to be placed in his royal suite with Lady Lunafreya. The Six only know where that stuff is now. No, he goes into a deeper, forbidden corridor that Noctis had only mentioned as they’d passed it. There’s only one door at the end of the once-regal hallway, made of thick wood and engraved with the Lucian crest and left ajar. Prompto steels himself and pushes it open with his left toes, peering inside.

The king’s room is empty.

It feels weird to be in the doorway. He’s only ever gotten as far into the residential side of the Citadel as Noct’s room, and that’d been a few winding hallways away from the royal suite of the ruling monarch of Lucis. To think that King Regis had slept here, had lived here, had been a real human in this place, gives Prompto pause. He’s really only ever thought of the king as just that. Yeah, he was Noct’s dad, but that was always some sort of abstract concept, divorced from the face that Prompto grew up seeing on screens and murals.

But he was just a man. Like Noctis is.

Now the old king is dead, and Noctis was too. Like father, like son. 

But Noctis is back. This is his room now.

After a moment more of deliberation, he rolls into the room. He’s always been welcome in Noct’s place; this is no different, then. The room is sparsely populated with furniture and personal effects. Prompto wonders if that’s because King Regis was frugal with his possessions or if Noctis had hoarded them away like precious treasures.

He reaches into the little pocket that Gladio has helped him put onto his wheelchair and tugs out his cargo for the day. His reason for being a commoner in the room of his king. It’s a photo. A gift to hopefully brighten Noct’s day.

He’s chosen a bright one, one taken in the daylight. Somehow, he thinks that giving Noct a photo from before the dawn will make things worse. No, this one is new and fresh and beautiful, one that he hopes won’t bring up too many miserable memories for his friend. He smoothes a wrinkle in the corner, determined to keep it pristine. It’s a shot of Hammerhead at dawn. He’d even gotten up early to take it. He wishes that the angle had been better, but his chair can only do so much when it’s not on pavement so he hadn’t had many options. All the same, the place looks beautiful, casting long spidery shadows against the warm orange and rose of sun-kissed earth.

Prompto kind of misses the place. Things had been simpler in Hammerhead.

Stretching out from the chair, he lays the photo down on Noct’s pillow. It looks almost garishly bright against the solemn black of the king’s linens. Prompto almost changes his mind and reaches out his hand to take the photo back, but something gives him pause. Noct would like this, right? He’d always indulged Prompto’s hobby. Prompto grins at a memory that rises up unbidden: a campsite somewhere in a lonely part of Cleigne, with the firelight dancing across the haven. Prompto’s striking a pose, grinning like a maniac while Noctis circles him, taunting him like the paparazzi in Insomnia.

_ “Mr. Argentum!” he crows. “What do you have to say about your friendship with the prince?” _

_ Prompto strikes a pose, holding his hand to his chest like he’s been wounded. “He’s a monster!” he cries dramatically. “So rude! Never shares his limited edition comics! Refuses to aid me in King’s Knight raids!” _

_ Noctis snorts and snaps a photo on Prompto’s camera. “Mr. Argentum, you’re the hero of Insomnia! The best Crownsguard around!” _

_ “Who, me?” Prompto makes his eyes go wide and stares into the camera. _

_ “Yes!” Noctis grins, and the camera clicks again. “Show us something! Please!” _

_ Prompto wiggles his eyebrows, eliciting a snort from Gladio, who’s watching them from one of the camp chairs. “I would never deny the people what they want!” He summons up his pistols and waves them around, taking aim at invisible enemies. _

_ “Careful!” Ignis calls automatically, but there's no denying the fondness in his voice. _

_ “A Crownsguard never loses control!” Prompto crows, and he mimes firing off a shot. Noctis laughs, taking picture after picture while Prompto flails along, striking heroic poses. “Be prepared for anything!” He leaps into the air, aims the guns, and then promptly falls over. _

_ Noctis leans over him, barely hiding his giggles. “Majestic,” he drawls, and snaps another picture. “I’m so lucky to have a Crownsguard like you.” He shifts the camera into one hand and holds out the other. “Come on. Up.” _

_ Prompto laughs, and so do Gladio and Noctis and yes, even Ignis. He reaches up and lets Noctis pull him to his feet. _

His feet.

The thought knocks him out of his blissful reminiscence with a twinge in his heart and a bolt of phantom pain in a leg that doesn’t exist.

Prompto frowns down at his leg, rubbing at the bandaged stump. Is it really going to make him regret even his most cherished memories? The tender skin seems to think so, and it aches under his fingers. Prompto sends up a quick prayer to Bahamut for strength - they’re on speaking terms, right? The whole saving the world thing? - and straightens, trying to ignore the constant throbbing ache.

And, okay, Prompto doesn’t mean to pry, but he does take a look around. It’s not every day that he gets to see where the king lives.

The sparseness is actually quite elegant. Prompto had hated the garish textures and colors of their suite in Altissia, and now seeing the soft black and understated gold soothes his eyes into calmness. The bed is a little rumpled where Noctis has been burrowing into it at night, evidence that at the very least, he’s been sleeping. And there are clothes and papers already scattered on most available surfaces, including the floor. All trademark Noctis. The mess is actually reassuring. It means the Noct is still himself.

Odd. The window in the bedroom is foggy, like there’s something distorting the glass. Curious, Prompto makes his way over and presses his finger to the glass. It’s...really cold. Like, really, really cold. He hisses and draws his finger back in surprise, staring at it. His skin is already red from exposure to the intense chill of the window. When Prompto inspects the glass more closely, he sees why: the window is frosted over with ice, distorting the sunlight into eerie waves within the bedroom.

It reminds him of the impossible snowy terrain of Niflheim, and of Aranea and the threatening rumble of a metal beast beneath the earth. He moves his fingers to the curtains, soothing the cold away with the warmth of the fabric. He should really give Aranea a call. She’d made a quick stop in Hammerhead soon after Noct had woken up, but she’d disappeared again in a heartbeat. Off rescuing survivors from deep bunkers in the depths of imperial territory, surely. After the sun had risen, there had been distress calls from long-silent channels, begging for recovery. It makes sense - the people of Tenebrae and beyond were used to the increased numbers of daemons already, what with their proximity to the cursed epicenter at Gralea. Some of them had taken refuge in sealed magitek facilities, living off the rations of armies. Aranea is the best person for the job, even after these long ten years. If anything, she’s better.

He just wishes he could be there to help.

Prompto turns from the window. The impossible chill has nothing for him but bad memories. He wants something warm and comforting instead. There must be some place where he can take a breath of air, where he can recover from the unstoppable pace of Insomnia which threatens to sweep him up and send him stumbling into the darkness once more. For a moment, he thinks of his old place in a far-flung district of the city. He thinks of his bedroom, and of the little possessions he’d left in there, expecting to come back to them right after the wedding to Lady Lunafreya. All of his progress photos. His collection of chocobo charms, won over the years at the arcade. Everything that had been his.

But that place isn’t his home. It never was.

No, he knows where he can find warmth. Hearth and home, friend and king.

Noctis.

He finds Noct in what has become his usual haunt, a small alcove of rubble in the upper corner of the throne room. The sunlight streams through along with the wind, tugging at the long strands of hair that he’s refused to cut. He’s shaved his face, at least, and without the stubble the sharp angles of his jaw are all the more apparent. His cheeks look sunken without the hair there, though; and Prompto takes note of that to bring up with Ignis later. 

“You shaved,” he says by way of introduction.

Noct turns when he hears Prompto’s voice. The light from the sun catches in the ruby facets of his eye and veins, turning them to fire. “It feels familiar,” he explains quietly. His eyes dart to the throne for a moment, seeing something that Prompto can’t fathom. Then he moves his gaze to meet Prompto’s. “What’s up?” 

“Just wanted to see you. Is that so bad?”

Noct frowns. “How’d you get the chair here?”

Prompto looks down. Yeah, now that he admits it, there is a lot of rubble still on the floor. And Noct is still pretty high above him, tucked in just below the level of the throne. “I rolled,” he says, and mentally slaps himself in the face.

“Yeah. I got that.” Noct is silent again, and he turns his gaze back out the window. 

He doesn’t seem to want to start any sort of conversation besides that, so Prompto takes it upon himself. “I, uh, left a new photo next to your bed. Wasn’t sure where you’d want one.”

Noct doesn’t tear his gaze from the window, but something in his brow creases. “Why?” he asks.

Prompto takes a second on that one. He sounds out the words carefully. “You...you wanted one. Before you fought Ardyn. To take with you.”

“I did,” Noct agrees, and his voice is dangerously far away. “She liked it.”

Even though that sends a thrill of worry down his spine, Prompto can’t help but feel a little proud. Luna liked his photo? There’s a little bit of a blush blooming on his cheeks, and he’s glad that Noctis is far enough away to miss it. It’s probably blending into the red of his veins anyway. “Glad to hear it, buddy.”

Noct smiles, and Prompto thinks it’s the first time he’s seen him smile since before he died. 

“I’m going to go find Gladio. I need to talk to him.” Noctis stands with a little effort, grunting at what must be a twinge of pain in his still-healing chest wound. He throws his right hand out to the side and clenches his fist.

Prompto winces.  _ Oh. _

Noctis frowns over at his hand. “Oh,” he says, echoing Prompto’s thoughts. “Force of habit.” He shrugs down at Prompto, attempting some sort of casual air. “Good thing I didn’t jump first, right?”

That elicits a surprised giggle from Prompto. “His Royal Pancake-iness,” he suggests, and Noctis graces him with another rare grin.

“Got that right,” he says, and he clambers down the rock pile with easy grace, brushing dust off the pristine black of his clothes. It’s one of the king’s more casual outfits, not quite a suit but not exactly the battle fatigues Noct had worn as a prince on the run. He just looks like another man, thirty and healing. Prompto doesn’t miss the way that he doesn’t go anywhere near the throne as he descends the stairs. He doesn’t blame him, really. Noct’s blood is staining the red fabric of the throne, a memorial of his death.

“Up for some King’s Knight later?” Prompto suggests when Noctis draws level with him.

Noct’s eyes light up with a hint of excitement, making the steely blue of his left eye turn to something more like the cloudless sky. With mischief coloring his voice, he points out, “Isn’t that game for kids?”

“Please,” Prompto scoffs. “If the king can’t do what he wants, then who can?”

That seems to convince Noctis. He nods. “Come by tonight. We can make a habit of it.”

Prompto grins. “Just warning you, I’m a little rusty.”

“Ten years for me, Prom,” Noctis points out. “If that’s not rusty, I don’t know what is.” He places his hand on Prompto’s shoulder, just for a moment, resting it there before he passes him and heads for the doors. Prompto turns and watches him go. Hm. He’s limping. Another thing to bring up with Ignis later.

And then Noctis is gone, just another ghost in their burned-out castle.

With nobody else around, Prompto decides to wander through the castle. The electricity had been kept running by Ardyn in preparation for Noct’s arrival, so the elevators are still able to take him through the winding floors and hallways of the Citadel without much trouble. There are a few floors where the elevator doors slide open and reveal a pile of rubble or crumpled armor of a Nif soldier, but Prompto just skips those. There’s plenty that he’s never seen, and now he finally has the run of the place.

Here’s the hallway with the Crownsguard offices. On a whim, Prompto peeks into what he knows is Cor’s old place, but the Marshal isn’t there. Either he’s slipped away from the Citadel or he’s avoiding the remnants of his past life in service to King Regis. Prompto snaps a quick photo of the dim room, framing long-abandoned Ebony cans and crumbling papers in the odd half-light of sunlight hitting Lucian black.

Onwards and upwards, through winding halls he goes.

A few times, he has to bend and fiddle with his wheels when they get a bit too choked with kicked-up rubble, pinching his fingers between the axles that are keeping him moving. It’s frustrating to have to do maintenance just to do something as simple as explore, but it can’t be helped. Not yet. He’ll talk to Cindy; she can help him out. And she would.

Lost in his thoughts, Prompto doesn’t even notice that he’s made a few turns that he doesn’t quite recognize. The floors and walls here are particularly battle-scarred but still ornate. Hm.

He’s never been in this room before.

It’s a beautiful one, lit through shattered windows that cast daylight across the high galleries. The walls make a near-perfect circle, sending the sunlight into impossible fractals across the ground. Just another jewel in the crown that is the Citadel, another monument to the power and wealth of the Lucian kings.

Prompto takes hold of his wheels and turns his chair in a circle, taking in the fine stone details on the walls and floor. Sure, there are remnants of the battle for Insomnia, but they don’t detract from the elegance of the Citadel. There are old swords scattered across the floor along with faded scraps of fabric that have long since been salvaged and looted by desperate Lucians. Prompto lets his eyes roam over these remains of those who had protected the Citadel in the Fall, whispering a quiet “For hearth and home.” That’s what the Kingsglaive say, right? 

And on the wall, high above -

A sword, still stuck in the time-blemished stone. It’s massive and ornate, probably belonging to some long-dead dignitary or Council member. But as Prompto squints up at it against the light of the sun, it’s not the fine details of the blade that draw his eyes.

It’s the body still attached.

Some poor soul has been impaled by the blade. Their body hangs, all bones and tattered black robes, high in the eaves of the chamber. A victim of the Fall, then, or the robes would hang without a body in them, evidence of the power of the Scourge. Yes, this person was dead long before the Night fell on Insomnia.

A twisted, curious part of Prompto almost wants to take out his camera. This is someone’s history, a soldier’s last stand. This is the history of Lucis and its fall from grace. Tragic and sad as this person’s body may be, it has a feral beauty to it. Prompto would be giving this unnamed person a send off into memory, capturing their courage on film. 

And he almost does it. Almost.

But something gives him pause.

Something has fallen to the ground beneath the unfortunate soul. It’s a little rusted, but it catches a sunbeam just right, throwing the reflected light into Prompto’s eye. Prompto scrubs at the eye to clear the sunspots and rolls closer, coming underneath the shadow of the knight of bones and black and gold. He peers down at the object, long since discarded by its owner. It tugs at some dormant memory, but he can’t quite place it. 

A shield?

A beautiful shield at that, expertly made. It’s functional but beautiful, clearly designed more for ceremony than for the battlefield. Makes sense, he supposes, since everyone had been caught off guard at the signing. Nobody had expected a fight; they’d been ready for formality and peace. The shield glints up at him, strong and steady and gilded with royal gold. And embossed in the center, proudly displayed in black steel-

An eagle.

It slowly falls into place.

Prompto rocks back in his seat, heart stuttering. “No,” he gasps. He’d known. Of course he’d known that there was a possibility of stumbling across something - some _ body  _ \- like this. But he wasn’t ready. Gods, he wasn’t ready for this. He looks up again, craning his neck, even though every part of his body is screaming at him  _ no, no, you can’t look, don’t look, you know who that is- _

“Sir,” he croaks, staring up at the body impaled high above. He presses a trembling fist to his chest and bows his head.

He needs to call Gladio.


	8. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discoveries and regret.

It’s hard work, this.

The training rooms in the depths of the Citadel were mercifully untouched during the Fall and the Night, and though they’re overgrown with the dead remnants of greedy weeds, they serve their purposes well enough. The dummies are still intact and there are extra weapons around for him to test his abilities. 

He’s good enough with spears and lances, since his arm’s strong enough to really throw them. He’s not fond of trying any of that dancing and vaulting like what Ignis uses, but he’s decent enough. The knives are fine enough but unwieldy in his hands; they’re too small for him, and are really only good for throwing. Really, if he wanted to get close enough to stab somebody, he’d just hit them. No point in getting fancy with it. There are a few shields, too, but he doesn’t touch them. None of them will replace the one he’s lost to the armiger.

The greatsword feels like a limb that doesn’t belong to him anymore. In his hands, it’s ungainly and all too heavy. He’d finally picked it up once they’d set off for Insomnia. There was no question that he’d go with his king, but his duty remained a question. Was he still the King’s Shield in name, if not in ability? Ignis sure seemed to think so, and so Gladio had picked up his sword and gotten in a car to Insomnia. A sword in the Crown City is better than nothing at all. Without the armiger, though, he doesn’t have the ability to phase the weapon in and out of his hand at will, only summoning it up at the perfect moment to give maximum momentum to his strikes, leaving him with high energy as he maneuvers without the blade encumbering him. Now, he has to keep holding it. He keeps knocking himself off balance on the follow-throughs of each swing, unused to the effort of keeping the blade in control.

It’s a flaw he needs to train out. And perfection only comes through work.

He needs more.

The scabs on his palms and fingers are toughening into scarred calluses under his continued use of the sword. The bleeding stopped a few days ago, at least. He’s distantly proud of the accomplishment. Pain into power. All the better, if it can help him serve his king.

He swings the sword at the mildewing dummy with renewed ferocity. He’s put some dented practice armor on it, and he’s trying to imagine that it’s another MT. If he squints hard enough, maybe he can just barely see the the glow of emotionless red eyes and the impassive green of the mask. He swings again, and the armor clangs in sharp protest. That would’ve dented the chest of any soldier. 

Again, and he lops off an arm. It’s too easy.

Again, and his blade rings out an iron note against the neckpiece of the dummy. He grunts and swings again. This time, the blade strikes true, and he separates the dummy’s head from its shoulders. It clatters into a heap at his feet.

It’s a hollow victory, all told. Gladio frowns down at the mangled mess at his feet. Not much of a fight. He almost misses the rush of battle with daemons, and the desperate adrenaline that had come with it. That’s what he really needs: the mindset of a warrior with only the instinct to survive driving them. He wishes he could have that sort of narrow focus, that laser accuracy that keeps him on target. But he doesn’t, and his mind keeps wandering.

Only more work can banish the thoughts from his hyperactive mind, if only for a little while. He needs more.

He pushes the crushed remains of the dummy over into the corner. There’s already a small pile of them gathering dust where he’s left them. They’re not really the best sparring partners, but everybody else is busy with the reconstruction of Lucis. Besides, who’s going to be a threat in this new world, where everybody is still so afraid? He might as well keep fighting dummies if that’s the only battle he’s going to get anytime soon.

More. He needs more.

Gladio drags over a new dummy. Once again, he falls into the rhythm of swings and parries against an invisible force, trying to acclimate himself to the heavy constancy of a sword untouched by the magic of kings. A few times, he almost hears the voice of a prince he’d once known, calling him to strike with moves he still knows by heart. But he ignores those fleeting echo calls and continues to fight, grunting with the effort. It’s grueling, brutal work, and it makes him feel clean.

And then his quiet, desperate peace is broken.

_ Great. _

Gladio knows it’s him before he even turns. He clutches the greatsword even tighter in his grip and tries to will him away.  _ I don’t want to talk to you yet, I’m not ready- _

“You’ve been in here too long,” Noctis says from the doorway. He’s using his royalty voice, the one he used to use whenever he was trying to get his way. Now, though, this Noctis sounds the part. Weary and imposing and powerful, just like his father. When Gladio turns to look at him, he can see that he looks the part too. He’s wearing the black and gold of a king, including a knee brace that he must have salvaged from the ruins of King Regis’s quarters. And it looks like he needs it too, because he’s leaning heavily on it. Just another part of him that Gladio hadn’t been able to protect.

He puts the greatsword down with a heavy clang, not missing the way Noctis’s eyes narrow at the treatment of the sword. “What can I do for you?” he asks, crossing his arms.

“That won’t repair itself anymore,” Noctis reminds him. “No armiger.”

Gladio shrugs. “Why are you here?”

“Wanted to talk. You’ve made yourself scarce since we came here.”

“Things to do. Training. Rebuilding.” Gladio taps his fingers on his arm in a frustrated rhythm. “What of it?”

Noctis’s frown deepens into an all too familiar scowl. “That’s not how people should talk to the king.”

“Wasn’t aware you were about all of the bowing and fanfare. Been around Ignis much?”

“Stop that,” Noct mutters, and there’s a hint of his old self. “It’s not Ignis’s fault. I  _ am _ the king, though.” He fixes Gladio with a piercing stare, and not for the first time, Gladio truly notices the way that his gaze has become unsettling ever since his resurrection. The red eye is as bright as the blue one is dark, the long night and new dawn reflected in his gaze. It just makes Gladio feel worse. “Or have you forgotten?”

Gladio takes a step back. “Are you kidding me?” he growls.

Noctis shrugs, and despite the unfamiliar asymmetry in his eyes, he slips back into his neutral, carefully blank face like he’s never stopped being the prince Gladio had known. “You haven’t talked to me unless you’ve had to. I thought that after everything, our friendship meant something.” He retreats into the shadows of the doorway. “I guess not.”

And then he’s gone, just another shadow with the limping footsteps of the old king.

Gladio growls and picks up the nearest spear, hurling it at the wall. It sticks in the wall and hangs there, quivering in the cracked mortar. 

Great. Now he’s made a mess of the practice room. He groans a little and drops to the floor heavily, sitting and letting the workout and his frustration wash over him. It’s maddening how much his body simultaneously wants to chase after Noctis and apologize but also wants to rage and destroy something to let out the pent-up pain. He’s practically vibrating with it.

Wait.

There’s something actually vibrating. It’s sending the little tremors through the floor and into his feet, making his whole being faintly buzz with it. Gladio frowns and- Oh. His phone. Gladio tugs it roughly out of his pocket and checks the caller ID. Of course it’s Prompto. Gladio sighs and presses the ‘answer’ button. “Missed me?” he mumbles into the speaker, heading over to the wall and yanking at the spear. The point remains firmly lodged in the wall. There’s silence on the other end. If Gladio listens closely, he can hear the soft shaking exhale that Prompto lets out. “C’mon. Spit it out.”

“Gladio,” Prompto says, voice wavering. “Track my location. I don’t know where it is - just come now. It’s important.”

Gladio tugs at the spear, harder this time. It refuses to budge. He growls, “If you don’t tell me what it is, I’m not coming. Don’t waste my time.”

Prompto sighs shakily into the phone. “Gladio. It’s...it’s your dad.”

Gladio freezes. 

“I’ll be there soon,” he says into the phone, but he’s on autopilot. He’s hearing himself from far away and far back in time. In a heartbeat, it’s like he’s back on the ledge overlooking Insomnia, staring into the distance. Knowing that if the king was dead, his Shield must have died with him.

_ Dad. _

Everything he’s never allowed himself to feel threatens to come crashing back. He holds it back, barely, under a barrier of rationality. He needs to find Prompto. He needs to go see for himself.

_ Dad. _

He rushes out of the room - he can come back for his things later. It’s not like anybody will steal anything, not anymore. All he has eyes for is the blip on his screen that tells him where Prompto is, and he wills it to get closer with every floor he climbs two steps at a time. 

The hallways all blur together in rushes of black and glass and marble. All of them are insignificant. All of them are unfamiliar.

Until-

He knows this room.

He’s been here half a hundred times, in his youth. His father had taken him on walks through the Citadel in his spare time, on those days when Gladio had been young and eager and insatiable. They’d walked for hours, in those days, exploring hidden corners of the Citadel with which Gladio had been so enamored. This room had been a favorite of his, with its high soaring ceilings and kaleidoscope windows that cast polygon shadows on the ground below. Gladio used to jump from one patch of light to the next while Clarus had chased him from the shadows of the dark spots, giggling up a storm.

The happy memories are muted now, with time and something ominous. Gladio walks into the room and can immediately feel the bone-deep chill of a tomb. Something is very, very wrong.

Prompto sits quietly in his wheelchair in the center of the room, flanked by Monica and Dustin, looking like some small creature caught out in the storm. He’s hunched over something massive and glittering and beautiful, rubbing a thumb absently over the edge of it like it’s the only thing keeping him focused. He raises his eyes. “Gladio,” he sputters, but that’s all he manages. 

The thing in his lap - it’s a shield. His father’s shield. Gladio flinches at the sight. It’s real. It’s real. This isn’t a dream. It isn’t some horrible nightmare. This is real.

“Where is he?” Gladio asks roughly. It’s all he can think about. He needs to know. He needs to see. The three of them are silent. Gladio hadn’t taken them for traitors. Maybe they are, if they won’t  _ tell him. _ “Where is he?” he demands again, louder this time.

Prompto shakes his head and his shoulders tremble with grief. He shoves the shield into Dustin’s hands and backs up roughly. His wheels catch on rubble and discarded fabric, stopping him in his tracks. Prompto curses roughly and yanks the fabric out of his wheels, then abruptly turns the wheelchair and starts rolling out of the room. “I can’t watch,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry, Gladio.” And then he’s leaving, retreating from the room like it’s chasing him away with its sepulchral chill.

Gladio watches him go, and with every foot that Prompto goes away from him Gladio feels thinner, more worn out, like Prompto had been lending him some fragment of his tenuous strength. “Monica,” he begs her, because he’s desperate. His voice cracks around her name, and he doesn’t care. “Please.”

She has always been kind to their house. She knows the force of the feelings of an Amicitia. Monica bites her lip and nods. “Up there, Gladio,” she whispers around tears of her own, and one of her hands points steadily upward.

Gladio follows her gaze upward, up towards the ceilings and windows he had loved so much.

_ Oh. _

He hangs like some dark angel or bird of prey, a figure in tattered black. Gladio can scarcely believe it’s him. Had his father always been so small, under those robes? Had his bones always been that small? When had his father ever become anything less than a hero?

That can’t be him.

It’s him. 

_ Dad. _

"A ladder," he croaks. "I need a ladder." Is that his voice? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. All he can hear is the sound of his own heartbeat and the echo of his father’s dying scream. Somehow, somehow, the memory lingers. The sound loops and amplifies between his ears, and somewhere deep in the past King Regis cries  _ Clarus- _

Who had done this? Who had left his father to die alone and defeated, so far from his king?

His mind goes carefully blank while Dustin scrambles for a ladder. He can’t tear his eyes away from it. From him. From his body. 

Gods, that’s his sword, too. An insult. A defeat.

Dustin returns, and he props the ladder up against the wall. This is it. This is it.

He climbs, and he doesn’t close his eyes the whole way up. He keeps his gaze fixed ahead, up at his goal. At his dad. His father raised him to be strong; he won’t stop that now. He can’t stop now.

Gladio reaches out towards his father’s bones.

He doesn't remember the details.

He can't. He can't.

One moment he’s reaching out and touching the hilt of his father’s sword, and the next he’s somewhere else. Somewhere in a shifting world of blue where everything and nothing exists, and all he can think about is his father’s face.

_ Dad, _ he thinks.  _ Dad, Dad, Dad- _

He’s staring up at his father. He still hasn’t hit his growth spurt, and his father is still a giant to him, larger than life. He wonders if he’ll ever be as strong and loyal as his father is. He hopes he will be. Clarus must notice him staring because he glances down at Gladio and gives him a secret smile that’s just for him. Just for Gladio.

Clarus introduces him to the little prince, who looks up at him with wary blue eyes. Gladio doesn’t like him, not at first, but his father tells him  _ One day, you will come to love that boy as a brother. _ And Gladio believes him. He was right. Of course he was right.

He’s showing off his tattoo to his father, glowing with pride at his praise. Finally a true Amicitia, marked as the King’s Shield.

Clarus hands him a wooden sword on his first day in the Citadel. He crouches down, eyes soft in the light of the training room, and tells him  _ Your weapon is your life. _

He’s holding a newborn Iris in his arms - his own baby sister - and Clarus watches him carefully, warning him that his new sister is delicate and can’t play just yet. Gladio nods eagerly, promising to never let her get hurt,  _ ever _ , and Clarus smiles. His eyes are so soft, so loving.

Clarus lets him hold his shield. It’s heavy and made of gold and cold black steel, and Gladio’s arms are still too weak to hold it, but his father tells him  _ This is your calling. One day, you’ll be the Shield to the King. _

He’s saying a brief goodbye to his father before he goes into the throne room to see the king.  _ I’m fine, _ he assures Clarus, clapping him on the shoulder.  _ Noct’s got a good head on his shoulders. Besides, I’ve got Iggy. It’ll all be fine. _ Something impossibly sad crosses Clarus’s face, falling into the amber of his eyes. Gladio, when he’d been there, seeing his father for the last time, hadn’t seen it. Why hadn’t he seen it? It’s so obvious now. How hadn’t he seen it?

He knew. He knew all along, and he’d let Gladio go.

_ He knew. _

“How could you just let me go?” he whispers, but he’s not sure if he’s using his mouth or not. Is his body his? All he can think is  _ Dad- _

_ Why? _

When his memories swim back into focus and his mind returns to his autopilot limbs, he’s in his bedroom. Ignis is at his shoulder - when had he showed up? - and is saying something. Gladio blinks and stares at him, but Ignis’s words are coming to him through a fog. 

He shakes his head to clear it. Everything is still foggy and blue-tinged, but Ignis repeats himself: “Where should I put this, Gladio?” His voice is so gentle. It comes through to his ears like a warm morning sun, burning away the mist in his head and bringing him back to himself. 

Gladio blinks again, slowly. How did he get here? He asks Ignis as much, slowly, like his mouth isn’t working. He’s still on autopilot, and his body is still at its own controls.

Ignis’s brow furrows in genuine concern. “You walked, Gladio. With me.”

“Did I?” Gladio asks faintly. What had happened? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he idly remembers the faint feeling of carrying his father’s bones down a ladder, but then that memory is lost into the fog where all he feels is pain. He looks down at Ignis’s hands. “The shield,” he mumbles.

“Yes, Gladio. Where am I to put it?”

“The closet,” he croaks. “Somewhere I can’t see it.”

Ignis frowns. “Are you sure?” he asks gently. 

Gladio nods, violently. “Get it out of my sight.” He can’t look at it. He’s a sword. He’s a sword. Swords cut through that which tries to slow them down.

Ignis obliges, slowly walking away from Gladio and making his way over to the wardrobe. He feels along its surface for the handle and tugs it open, gently setting the shield onto the floor inside. Meanwhile, Gladio stands there, feeling empty and confused and betrayed. Ignis comes back to him quickly enough, and his hands on Gladio’s are like anchors. “Let’s get you to bed,” he suggests. “You need rest.” He tugs Gladio, and Gladio follows like a pet, absently allowing Ignis to manhandle him between the sheets. “Rest,” Ignis urges. “Please.”

“I will,” Gladio promises. He thinks he means it. He is tired, now that he thinks about it, and his eyes are aching and his cheeks are stinging. Has he been crying?

“Call if you need anything. I’ll come over, no matter what,” Ignis promises, and then he gives Gladio’s hand one last pat before he stands and makes his way back to the door.

And Gladio almost lets him go. Almost. Then he calls out, “Wait.”

Ignis turns. “Yes, Gladio?”

His mind is clear, and all he can feel is pain. Ten years of it, finally released, taken down from forgotten eaves of his mind like he’d-

Like he’d taken his father-

“Stay with me,” he blurts. “Please.”

And - oh, Ignis’s face softens immediately. He comes back to the bed with all manner of swiftness, placing his glasses on the bedside table and settling in beside Gladio. They’d done this once, as children together when they’d first met. They’d been so young then, and still daunted by the magnitude of their responsibility. Now they’re just men, tired and grieving for their own reasons and maybe for some that they share. Regardless, Ignis is a steadfast and quiet presence at Gladio’s side. 

Gladio turns and presses his face into the pillow and Ignis’s arm. If Ignis notices the wet heat of his tears, he doesn’t say a thing.

Ignis stays with him through the night, and Gladio is thankful for it.


	9. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation and realization.

Gods, he’s tired.

He hadn’t dared fall asleep when he was in bed with Gladio, for fear of him getting up and wandering away. Nothing had scared him much during the Night - after all, the darkness was a familiar foe by then, so the perpetual midnight was just more of the same - but Gladio had. It took a special kind of misery to get somebody into a state like that. Ignis is almost glad that he hadn’t seen the look in Gladio’s eyes; he’s not sure if he could take the vision of one of his oldest friends breaking to pieces. 

Staying had been the least he could do.

He has to extricate himself from Gladio’s loose grip sometime after the sun has already risen. It is already later than his usual waking time, and his phone has already buzzed with irritation at him several times by the time he actually leaves the bed. He doesn’t want to, of course. Part of him wants to stay with Gladio and enjoy the simplicity of his companionship. The two of them haven’t truly seen eye to eye in years, and as miserable as the circumstances are, Ignis still wishes to revel in that closeness.

But he has a job to do, and life goes on.

He takes a quiet moment to check on Gladio once more. After hours of fitful tossing and turning and quiet shuddering tears, Gladio had slipped into a deeper slumber late in the night. Ignis runs a finger lightly along the half-covered palm of one of Gladio’s hands, frowning at the scabs and calluses he finds there. He’ll need to ask him about these sometime. But for now, Gladio is grieving. Ignis doesn’t dare wake him; the poor man needs his rest. He needs comfort, too, and Ignis wishes with all his heart that he could be the one to lay beside Gladio and give it, but-

Yes. The job.  _ His _ job. He collects his glasses from the bedside table and slips out of the room.

Into the Citadel he goes, greeting his countrymen with easy cordiality as if he hasn’t just stayed up all night, wearing the clothes of the night before. But nobody says anything, and Ignis can’t be bothered.

The morning passes without much ceremony. There are affairs to be tended to, and it seems as if he and the ladies from Lestallum have become the de facto leaders of the nationwide relief efforts. Insomnia is his primary focus at the moment, though, and he’s thankful that Holly and the other engineers are coordinating the sending of aid to far-flung regions. They make a good team.

The matter of Clarus Amicitia, however, seems to be a task he must take on himself.

The funeral will be soon enough. The Shield of the King will be buried in the ancestral tomb of the past Amicitias as a token of thanks from the people. When Ignis tells Cor as much, the Marshal sighs in relief.

“That’s good,” he says, and from the sound of it, he runs his fingers through his hair. “He was worried about that. Regis, I mean.”

“Really?” Ignis asks. “Why would he worry so for his Shield to perform his duty?”

Cor hums a quiet affirmative. “Ignis, I’m sure you remember our discussion in the Tomb of the Wise. King Regis knew what he was getting into when he sent you and the prince away and accepted Niflheim into Insomnia for the treaty signing. Clarus knew, too. He knew that by staying at the king’s side - a guarantee of death during the Fall - he’d be setting himself up for failure.”

Ignis frowns. “Failure?” he asks incredulously, and his voice echoes around the throne room. He and Cor are sitting on the steps there. Once, Ignis might have balked at such a blatant breach of protocol, but he and the Marshal have a sort of understanding after all this time spent conferring in the dark, and they sit comfortably on the dark marble stairs that lead to the king’s empty throne.

“Failure,” Cor affirms roughly. “You have to understand something, Ignis. The Amicitias live their whole lives in service to the king. Failing in that service, even if it is by dying for the sake of the king, is a mark of great shame. If the king dies, their Shield is to blame.”

“Ah.” Of all the endless history he’s read and remembered in his long years of service to the crown, he’s never given much thought to the ideology of his old friend’s ancient legacy. It’s a story as old as the Caelums themselves, and he’d never realized. “In that case, it’s all the better that Master Clarus is being interred in a place of honor. I believe we can all see that he did his duty with incredible grace, given the situation. It’s only a fraction of what he deserves for his service to Lucis.”

Cor gives a soft little chuckle, and the ghost of a smile colors the tone of his next words. “Clarus deserves a whole lot, for sure. At the very least, a spa day. I gave him hell when we were younger.”

“Oh?” Ignis asks archly. “I seem to remember you often receiving informal reprimands from him not so long ago. Not exactly befitting the commander of the Crownsguard, all told.”

“I never said I stopped giving him hell,” Cor admits, and then his voice softens. “He taught me the meaning of duty, though. When he refused to take on the Trial of Gilgamesh, I understood. And I respected him all the more for it.” He sighs. “I miss him.”

It’s a statement so incongruous with Ignis’s idea of Cor Leonis that Ignis is surprised to hear it at first. Even during the Night, Cor had been nothing but stoic and strong. Ignis supposes that he’d never given thought to the fact that Cor might have been hiding his own misery to prop up everybody else. A true leader, then. “He was a great man,” Ignis agrees, “and I’m sure you meant a great deal to him, just as the king did.”

“In a different way, surely,” Cor answers absently, voice twisting into amusement as he remembers some long-ago mischief. “He was one of my greatest friends.”

Is that what Gladio is to Ignis? Is that what they are? Ignis tries to imagine the loss of Gladio, and how that would shatter him. In the throne room, the reality of the emotions is all too close, and he thinks he gets an inkling of what the Marshal must be feeling right now.

“Enough of this old man,” Cor mutters, almost self-consciously. If Ignis had to take a guess, he’d say that Cor is rubbing at the back of his neck right now. “Ignis, I want to make sure that you’re okay. It’s a big move to leave Lestallum after so long, especially with Insomnia being in the condition that it is.”

“I’m managing well enough,” Ignis assures him with a wan little smile, and. Well. It’s not a complete lie. He’s making his way around the Citadel with enough ease, and he’s got Dustin or Gladio to help him out when he needs something. Physical adjustments have never really been the worst of his problems, though. But Cor doesn’t need to know that.

Cor stands to leave, brushing off his jacket with a rustle like the wind in the trees. “Ignis, I trust in your abilities The city calls. I’ll be seeing you.”

“A pleasure, Marshal, as always.”

“Cor.”

Ignis smiles. “Old habits,” he reminds him, and Cor’s answering chuckle lets him know that the honorific is still welcome.

Cor’s footsteps sound out with thunderous echoes in the massive soaring emptiness of the throne room, ricocheting to announce the Immortal’s departure. Ignis turns his head to the side, listening closely to the sounds to parse out exactly when the Marshal actually leaves. It’s good practice, he thinks. Lestallum had been easy If he’s to stand at the king’s side in this very throne room, he has to know it inside and out, and to do that he needs to be able to read the room in ways that his eyes had done with ease.

Somehow, it still surprises Ignis that he’s still adjusting to the inconveniences of blindness. There are so many things that he’s missed out on, and so much he can no longer do. He hadn’t realized how much of his old life had relied on sight until he’d returned to it. Not being able to read and file reports, not reading the expressions of dignitaries during negotiations, not seeing Noct’s face in years and years and-

Wait.

Mind back on track.

And here Ignis sits, sprawled out on the stairs of his destiny. It sounds horribly melodramatic when he thinks about it like that. But he’s been through enough; isn’t he allowed his little lapses into the excessive? Besides, he  _ was _ raised alongside the crown prince, groomed just as he was to inherit their sprawling nation. His responsibilities just happened to be more of a supporting role.

He supposes that he’s kind of just taken up his responsibilities again like nothing’s happened. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure whether or not Noctis even wants his help. Ignis had just figured, when he’d left Hammerhead, that he’d just continue helping Noctis in the best way he could, even if Noctis refused to talk to him.

Does Noctis even still want him around?

Ignis, now that he’s alone, hunches over and puts his head in his hands. He hasn’t felt this tired in ages, and all the stress isn’t exactly helping. Things hadn’t exactly been simple in Lestallum, but there had been order. No, he hadn’t been able to be with his friends much at all, but he’d known there was some sort of purpose, that they were waiting for their king. Now that he’s back and that everyone has fallen apart in their own ways, he’s not sure what will become of them. The purpose has always been Noctis, but now Noct

He stands and sighs. There’s work to be done. This time, it’s his own echoing footsteps that follow him out the door, sounding less like thunder and more like the soft, fading sounds of a rock being dropped far, far down the face of Ravatogh. 

He smiles at one of the surviving Crownsguard who’s stationed outside of the door to the throne room. “Hello,” he says quietly.

“Master Ignis,” the Crownsguard replies. Ignis doesn’t recognize her voice; she must be one of the people who’d taken up hunting and stayed out in Hammerhead or one of the other far-flung bastions of safety in the Night. The note of respect in her voice lets Ignis know that she, at least, knows who he is.

He stops by his own small study, now equipped with a text reading software on his machines, to pick up some reports that need reading. The king will need to see these. Recovery bay be on all their minds, but the world is still waking up around them and Lucis has a responsibility to be informed.

Noctis has set up camp in his father’s old office, a spacious and warm room a few floors up from the throne room. Ignis remembers it as being cozy in just the right way, a welcome respite from the oppressive marble and glass of the rest of the Citadel. He recalls the look of the  lush carpet and the dark mahogany of the walls. It’s the perfect place to rest and recover and study, Ignis thinks.

The moment he opens the door, though, there’s something different in the air.

Ignis pauses in the threshold. He doesn’t exactly smell the air like an animal, but he does a sort of approximation thereof. He knows what an empty room sounds like, and the office is missing that hollow feeling. And the warm cedar scent of the office is supplemented by something else, something vaguely familiar that Ignis hasn’t noticed in here before. It smells like pine and cinnamon.

Noctis.

He’s here, and he’s silent. Ignis just knows it. He can feel the weight of his gaze, burning into him like a too-hot blaze and too-cold ice all at once. It’s a disconcerting feeling, not knowing what his expression is, but Ignis knows Noctis enough to guess. Something stony, surely, carefully blank and uninterested and hiding the storm that Ignis knows rages beneath the surface of Noct’s facade. 

Well. He can’t just leave now that he’s already half inside the room. He has a job to do, after all.

He swallows his nerves and says, “I have some files for you. Reports from the outside.”

Noctis remains silent.

Ah. He hadn’t been expecting much of a response anyway. The past few times he’s dropped off files, Noctis hasn’t been in the office. They’ve danced around each other for days; whether by accident or by design is anyone’s guess. Ignis places the files at the edge of the desk, taking care not to get too close to Noctis. He’s been in this room enough to know where the chair is.

Ignis turns from the desk and moves further into the room, waiting until he hears the quiet shuffle of paper that signals that Noctis has begun at least skimming through the reports. Then he gets down to work.

He spends some time in the office, working as quickly and quietly as he can. There are things to be cleaned, and he knows Noct’s office like the back of his hand. Years of quiet shadowing of the king at his uncle’s side has given him an idea of where everything is. He can almost swear that he hears Noctis make a quiet sound of surprise when he pulls a key out of a desk’s hidden compartment and uses it to unlock a small drawer. It’s a welcome fantasy to entertain, certainly: the idea that he’s brought out something other than resentment in Noctis.

Well. He’s allowed his own little secrets. Blind or not, he’s determined to reclaim his position and fulfill it at the capacity he’d done back before the Fall. Ignis smirks a bit and pulls old official stationery and filing materials out of the drawer, setting them out on the tabletop before him. He’ll need to figure out a way to reorganize the room so that he understands it well. Without his eyes, it’s impossible to pull out files and use them. He should at least get the labels redone with script he can read with his fingers; he’s pretty sure they have a machine for that somewhere deep in the administrative wings. Perhaps he can employ Prompto or Gladio to help him work it out.

He putters around for a little while longer, waiting and straining his ears for the the sound of Noct’s pen tip against a notepad. So he’s remembered what Ignis has taught him about making notes. The sound brings him back to quieter days in the fading afternoon light of Noct’s apartment, when the two of them would work in companionable silence on their respective tasks. There’s no particular image that stands out and tugs him into a spiral of remembrance, but Ignis savors the familiar warmth of countless evenings spent that way. In this office, warm and lit by sunlight, Ignis can almost hope that those days will become a reality once more. Someday.

There’s a soft slide of paper against wood, and then Noct’s side of the room falls silent again. Ignis looks up from his work at once. He knows a signal to leave when he hears one, and from the sound of it, Noctis is sitting as still as possible, trusting him to pick up on the hint. And Ignis is nothing if not observant and obedient.

He collects the files as quickly as he can and tries to slip out of the room without ceremony. Of course, that doesn’t work.

Oh,  _ hell. _

He’s dropped one. 

He makes a quiet noise of frustration. Is it worth it to bend and pick it up, or should he just leave before he makes a further fool of himself? He dithers for a moment, annoyed at his own uncertainty. He’s a professional; he shouldn’t be this nervous around his own king.

The decision is made for him.

There’s a scrape of chair legs on carpet and then a soft breath of air against his hand, and then suddenly the file is being pressed into Ignis’s waiting hand. 

“Thank you,” Ignis murmurs quietly, like he’s speaking to some skittish creature. It reminds him of his interactions with a black chocobo on a misty morning with Noctis, quietly working in unison to bring the bird into a sense of peace. The memory triggers a twinge in his heart.

Noctis doesn’t say anything, but there’s another whisper of air against Ignis’s skin, signaling that he’s returned to his chair. And there’s the weight of his gaze again, oppressive and burning and waiting for something that Ignis doesn’t understand. Does he expect Ignis to understand this silent exchange that he can’t see? Is this some sort of punishment where Ignis is caught between his duty to stay by the king’s side and the overwhelming desire to flee and wallow in his guilt?

It sure feels like it.

And then, a blessing-

“I talked to Gladio.”

Ignis pauses. “Did you?” he asks, keeping his voice carefully neutral. Gods, that’s Noct’s voice. He’d barely had a chance to hear it in Hammerhead. Now, it’s quiet and rough but still undeniably the Noctis that he has always known. “I wasn’t aware that he had much to say.”

Noctis sighs and shifts in his seat. “He didn’t. He’s combative.” His sentences are short, terse, and almost tentative. 

“He found his father’s shield, you know.” Every fiber of his being is on high alert, begging him  _ not to fuck it up, Scientia. _ “And his body.” He recalls the shell-shocked, hollow sound of Gladio’s voice, and the way he’d cried long into the night.

“I know.” Has he always sounded so weary, so battle-worn? “Will Iris be coming?”

Ignis shakes his head slowly. “Unfortunately, she’s caught on assignment deep in Tenebrae’s heartlands. She’ll be back when she can.” He pauses and then begins his retreat. Best not to overstep his bounds during his first amicable encounter with Noctis, right?

Noctis seems to have no such qualms. “That reminds me. Your uncle?”

“Ah.” Ignis rubs a thumb absently over the edge of one of the files. “He was in the negotiation delegation. When the fighting broke out, he defended the king. He was one of the others in the room with Master Clarus’s body.” It’d been a shock, for sure. Monica had been the one to tell him. There’ll be a funeral for Ignis’s uncle as well, but there are no mausoleums for those who work behind the scenes.

“I’m...sorry to hear that.” And he does sound like that, shockingly enough. “I liked your uncle.”

“Well,” Ignis says by way of thanks, because he’s a mess. 

“Ignis?”

He’s not heard Noctis say his name since the flat monotone he’d used right after waking up in Hammerhead; in this moment, his name has never sounded sweeter. Ignis angles his head to the side. “Majesty?” he asks, because this is Noctis, but this is also his king.

“...Thank you.”

Ignis pauses. Can Noctis hear the way his heart his hammering out a frantic rhythm in his chest? “Whatever for?” he asks slowly. He really can’t imagine what could warrant Noct’s thanks. Not after everything he’s done to him.

Noctis replies, “For staying.”

And that’s enough for Ignis. It’s something he’d never questioned. He’d always stay. Even if Noct never spoke to him again, he’d stay. 

His hand brushes Noct’s shoulder as he turns to go, and he swears he feels his heart stop. Is that something he hears from Noctis - an intake of breath? The sound disappears in a heartbeat, and Noct twitches out of range with deft grace, but Ignis’s hand is burning where he’s touched him.

“I’ll be going,” he says, thankful that he doesn’t trip over his words. “If you have need of anything pertaining to the files…” He trails off. Too much? Damn it, he commits. “Or in general. If you need anything, I mean.”

“I’ve got you on speed dial,” Noct tells him, carefully filling in the blank that Ignis has left at the end of his statement.

Ignis nods. “Good.”

And then he leaves.

Outside of the study, the air is colder and quieter and carries the scent of pine and cinnamon and cedar away from Ignis. Ignis shivers, but it’s spring and the promise of summer hangs in the air, waiting to spill into its full sunlit glory.

He walks down the hallway feeling ten times lighter. The rift between them is still there, and maybe it always will be, but they’re speaking now. They’ve made the first step.

For Ignis, that’s enough.

It’s Noctis.

As long as he’s at Noct’s side, it will always be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I've added the Ignis/Noctis tag. I've been playing with the idea for a while, and I've finally decided to commit. I can't wait for their story to unfold further.
> 
> Also, I'm kinda attached to the idea of Cor being in some way a messenger of Ramuh. Not like in the overt way, but I felt like there's something more to him. It's not going to be huge in the story, but I just like to pop in little stormy things about him.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading! :)


	10. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggestions and discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days in a row! I had this ready and just couldn't wait to put it out, so here you go. :)

Noctis seems to be getting better.

He smiles more now, and he’s started talking with Ignis. It’s not quite banter between them, but they still make little comments in the office that have both of them hiding tiny smiles behind books. Prompto sees, of course. He always does. He’s sure that if Ignis could see the look on Noct’s face after one of his gently sarcastic remarks, he’d combust from excitement. 

There’s something haunted and sad in Noct’s eyes, though, and his grins never quite reach them.

But Prompto will take what he can get, and if Noctis says he’s doing fine then Prompto desperately wants to believe him.

Prompto, for his part, has been trying his best to make himself useful. Ignis has started trying to reorganize old files, and there are only so many people who they can employ from the general populace without the whole Citadel becoming a security risk. They may be rebuilding their infrastructure, but the technology for background checks is so low on the priority list right now. So Prompto has become a sort of secretary on wheels. And, well-

It’s not ideal.

But he’s willing to do it, because there’s a bag under Ignis’s eye that never goes away and Noct’s forehead has become constantly creased with worry and stress. If he can help them get over that, if he can in some way take a load off their shoulder, he’ll do it. He’s an adult, and he went to school so that he could be a functional member of society. He’s better with math than Ignis nowadays, what with the whole ‘seeing the numbers’ part of doing math, so that’s where he’s focusing his efforts. 

There are numbers that need crunching quite often when running a nation, as it turns out. Prompto finds himself surrounded by reports that pour in from hunters and civilians alike, reporting on the condition of Lucis now that they can actually explore the world without much fear of death. Today, the reports happen to be about animal populations. Prompto’s shocked at how many of them survived the Scourge; it seems that a lot of them had always been able to live without sunlight, and that nobody had known that until the sun had been blotted out.

It’s not often that Noctis gets time off nowadays, but when he does, he can often be found in what Prompto’s claimed as his office. It’s a little room on the same floor as Noct’s and Ignis’s, probably the room where an ancillary advisor to Mr. Scientia had made their home. He guesses that’s what he is now. Still a part of the equation, and just as devoted to the king, but not quite in charge. He’s fine leaving the main work to Ignis if it means that he gets to have some days when the king of all of Lucis can come into his office and sit cross-legged on top of Prompto’s desk. He really likes those days.

Today is one such day.

Noctis looks healthier in the early morning sun today. His cheeks have filled out a bit, Prompto thinks, and his eyes are looking bright enough. He’d come into the office while still stuffing a tart into his mouth, so at least he’s eating. There’s a berry stain on his nice suit now, though. So there’s that.

“King’s Knight tonight?” Prompto suggests, scribbling out a figure. He squints at it. There can’t possibly be  _ that _ many arbas in Cleigne anymore. Right?

Noctis hums, idly twirling one of Prompto’s fancy fountain pens around between his gray-and-red fingers. “Sure. Just come over after dinner or something.”

“Raid? Farming?”

“Up to you.”

Prompto hums in quiet acknowledgement and gets back to his work. He needs to get these numbers back to the Council in Lestallum quickly so that the hunters can know how many animals they’re allowed to hunt for food without devastating the population. And then there’s a whole pile of reports on seed planting and budgeting for workers for that, and, well. It’s a lot.

“Hey, I actually have a thing to ask you.”

“What’s that?” Prompto asks absently. Really? Someone’s got to be pranking him now.  _ That many _ sahagins?

“Prompto.”

“Hm?”

A red-veined hand slams down on his paper. Prompto jumps back in surprise, whipping his gaze up to Noctis, who’s staring down at him with intent, amused eyes. “What gives?” he sputters.

Noctis shrugged. “Needed your attention.”

Prompto sighs and puts down his pen. At least there aren’t any berry stains on the report. “What is it?”

“So, I’ve been talking with some old Niflheim engineers and Cindy. They’ve been talking about giving back to the community somehow.” Noct scrubs a hand across his face. “Of course, Cindy’s done so much already, and I’m sure the Niflheim folks helped in Lestallum, but. Anyway. They wanted to do something.”

Prompto blinks. “Okay?” This really is Ignis’s department. Democracy and all that. Planning. Prompto’s more of a numbers guy, after all.

Noct rolls his eyes. “Prompto, I’m trying.”

Prompto shrugs.

“Okay.” Noctis seems to mentally rewind. “So, you know how you have that leg thing?”

“If by ‘leg thing’ you mean ‘no leg’, then yeah, Noct.”

Noctis buries his head in his hands. “Shiva take me, I’m bad at this.” He peers out at Prompto from between his hands - the blue eye this time, through red-veined fingers - and starts again. “These engineers have been trying to help out in the medical field. We all know they had some of the best technology before the Night. They want to help you out somehow.” He sits up and crosses his arms. “They want to make you a leg.”

“A leg?” Prompto sputters. “For me?”

Noct gives him a lopsided smile. “Well, yeah.” He turns a little bit more towards Prompto, and something like enthusiasm sparks up in his eyes. “It’d be fully functional, of course. It’d help you out, and you could walk and learn to fight again. Like old times?”

And Prompto is really on board, he is. Hell, hearing Noct talk like that about cave diving would probably convince him to go squeeze into an underground abyss. And he’s thinking about how good it would be to start running again, or to help with the rebuilding efforts, or to stand at Noct’s side, and it’s great. And all thanks to Cindy, who’s great, of course, and the people from Niflheim, too.

Oh. 

He starts to put the pieces together, and everything kind of comes to a screeching halt.

"A fake leg?" He remembers metal-gloved fingers and an impassive green mask. Something in him screams in protest, reminding him of the tragedy of Ravus Nox Fleuret. “I- I think I’m good, buddy. I’ll pass.”

Noctis looks at him with something that might be pity. “Prompto.”

“I don’t need it! I’m just fine hanging out as I am.”

Noct keeps staring at him with his unsettling bicolor gaze until Prompto bites his lip and looks away. “Prompto.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re not.” 

Something in him snarls, and he retorts, “Neither are you!”

Noct flinches like he’s been shot. “Excuse me?” he asks, and now his voice is low and calm and cold. Gods, this is Noct at his most dangerous. Before, back after the Fall of Insomnia, Noct had been all fire and fury, ready to rage at the world and his father and the entire Niflheim army. Now, he’s all ice, and the blue in his eye is almost crystalline with it. 

“Noct, I-”

“What do you mean?” Noct asks. Prompto shakes his head quickly, trying to undo everything and hide somewhere, but Noct grabs his hand to hold him there. “Prompto.”

Prompto scowls, and he hopes his face doesn’t betray the way his heart is pounding. “You don’t want to be here,” he spits.

“You’re projecting,” Noctis retorts. “You’re defensive.”

“And you’re a liar.”

Noctis slides off the desk and stands abruptly, eyes flashing. Even though the magic of the Crystal is gone, Prompto can swear he can feel the electricity of his king’s anger. “I won’t talk to you like this,” he says stonily, and then his expression shutters carefully, the way the old king’s used to when Prompto walked in on him having a discussion with Noctis. 

Prompto would be lying if he said that didn’t hurt a little.

“Fine,” he replies, and he casts his eyes down at his knees. Knee.

Noct stands there for another moment, like he’s on the verge of saying something. Then he turns and walks out the door with an unfamiliar cadence. It’s not his easy loping walk like he used to do through the halls of their high school. Instead, his gait is stilted, and maybe it drags a little, like his limp is acting up again. 

Prompto waits until his footsteps fade into nothingness before he lets any frustrated tears fall.

He shoves his reports aside and puts his head down on the desk. This was supposed to be one of the good days. Fights with Noctis were definitely not on the agenda. They never are.

Sniffing, he wipes the tears from his face. “Get it together,” he mutters to himself. “You're an adult.”

_ You’re a monster,  _ his mind counters slyly, and Prompto flinches.

“No,” he says aloud. “No.”

He pulls the sahagin report back into reach, staring down at it. Ugh, some of his tears have hit the desk and are now seeping into the paper of the report. One of the slowly spreading wet spots starts to blot out the ink on one of the notes Prompto’s made beside a table of figures. Prompto groans and squints at the mark. It was probably just useless math, anyway. But really, is that a one or a seven? Maybe it wasn't totally useless. Or was it?

Prompto groans and re-tallies the numbers in the table, making a new note next to the smudged one. Turns out it was a seven. Huh. And then he's forcing himself back into the mindset, trying to get back into the easy mental rhythm he'd had before Noct had reminded him of what he really was.

Back to work. Work will help.

Work decidedly does not help.

It's a long time until Prompto’s work day ends that afternoon.

“Iggy told me you fought with Noctis.” Gladio’s pushing him across the wide plaza in front of the Citadel, letting Prompto get the feeling of sunlight on his face. It’s both of their first times out in the sun in several days. Gladio’s been taking time for himself to recover his facade of strength after the death of his father, and Prompto’s been waiting for someone to come and help him out of the building.

Prompto frowns. Trust Gladio to corner him with something like this when he’s literally in his hands. “I did,” he says, unwilling to commit to whatever angle Gladio’s trying to pull. He fixes his gaze out across the plaza. Huh. There’s the spot where that daemon got him in the leg. The familiar ugly bitterness rises in his chest at the realization that the spot is right there. That’s where it happened. All in all, this is shaping up to be a miserable walk in the sun.

“Can I ask what about?” Gladio’s voice gently pulls him out of his ugly memories and directly into a just as ugly conversation. Great.

“You can.”

Gladio sighs. “Prompto.”

Prompto shrugs. “What? You can.”

“What about, then?” Gladio indulges Prompto’s pettiness with that long-suffering tone he’s perfected so well. 

“My leg.”

“Your leg?” Gladio asks, voice lilting up in blatant curiosity. “I didn’t think that a leg is that much of a point of contention. It’s gone, isn’t it? Not much to argue there.” Classic Gladio, blunt and to the point. Prompto almost laughs.

He doesn’t.

He picks at one of his cuticles. If Ignis could see this, he’d be reprimanding him in a heartbeat. Prompto revels in the little rebellion he has. “Well, nobody’s arguing that I don’t have a leg, Gladio. It’s very much gone.”

“So what is it?”

Prompto throws his head back and groans. “Gladio, why?”

Gladio has no such sympathy for Prompto. He seems determined to actually have a meaningful conversation, the absolute monster. “Out with it.”

Prompto sputters for a few more seconds, hoping to get out of this, but Gladio is indeed still pushing him around the plaza and it’s not exactly like Prompto can push himself away at a pace much faster than a sedate trot. So escaping is kind of out of the question. He sighs heavily, and it’s only a little bit dramatic. A little. “He wants to give me a leg,” he mumbles finally.

Gladio stops them short in the middle of the plaza. He slowly walks around Prompto’s wheelchair until he’s facing Prompto. Prompto frowns up at him. Have Gladio’s eyes always been so rimmed with darkness? Has his face always looks so lined with the accumulated misery of years spent without the sun? “A leg?” he repeats.

“Yeah.” Prompto gestures vaguely at his leg stump. “A prosthetic.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Gladio asks. “You could walk again. Isn’t what what you wanted?”

When he puts it like that, yeah. Prompto tells him as much.

Gladio frowns. “So what’s the problem?”

Prompto shrugs. It seems weird now that he’s faced with saying it out loud. Like it’s not really a problem. But Gladio wouldn’t laugh at him for his little fears and hangups, right? He understands? “Cindy’s helping to make it. But so are Niflheim engineers.”

He can see in Gladio’s eyes the exact moment when the pieces click together. First his brow furrows in confusion, tugging at his scars and creating new lines in his skin. Then something in his eyes lights up in realization. And then his eyes get infinitely sadder. “Prompto,” he says softly, and really, that’s it for Prompto.

“Don’t say it like that,” he begs. “Come on.”

“No, I understand why,” Gladio says. “Prompto, you know that they won’t do anything to you that you don’t want.”

“I know,” Prompto says plaintively, because objectively, in the rational part of his brain, he  _ knows _ that nothing bad will happen. But still the memory of all the MTs he’s killed swims through his mind, and when he casts his gaze over the twisted metal debris of armor and circuitry in the plaza all he can think is  _ That could have been me. _ “But it’s just-”

Gladio nods. “Yeah. It’s just-”

“Yeah,” Prompto finishes wearily.

“But you know that that’s not you, right? It’ll never be you. Not if we have something to say about it.” There’s a fierce conviction in Gladio’s voice that Prompto hasn’t heard in ages. Not since before Insomnia, for sure. Not since they’d been able to hide their fears under cover of darkness.

“But with the tech-”

“Not even then.”

“Doesn’t matter in the end, really. I’m still just some MT,” Prompto mutters.

Gladio folds his arms and stares. “You’re not.”

“We all know I am.”

“I thought you weren’t ashamed of it anymore.”

“And I thought  _ you _ were the King’s Shield, but it seems like both of us are liars.”

The look in Gladio’s amber eyes turns positively icy. “Ignis was right. You really are brutal when you’re upset,” he spits, and he turns on his heel and stalks away. His back is too straight, too stiff.

Prompto lets him go.

It takes him a few moments, seething in the warm sunlight, to realize that he has now chased off his only reliable means of getting back into the Citadel. He feels bad, he does, but not bad enough just yet that he’ll try to chase after Gladio. 

He ends up rolling himself up the ramp himself, huffing and puffing his way up the ramp equivalent of several flights of stairs. Not for the first time, he laments the lack of cardio that’s come with his disability. There's only so much wheeling that he's able to get into his day now that he has a glorified desk job. Maybe that's another reason to try the leg. Maybe-

He shakes his head to clear the thought. He can't do it. He can't.

The sun has started to set by the time Prompto gets back to his own room, arms aching from exertion. It's a generously sized suite in the administrative wing of the Citadel, probably near where Ignis sleeps. If he ever does sleep, that is. It's still odd to think that he, Prompto Argentum, former commoner and even more former magitek trooper, now has a place in the Citadel.

He sits in contemplative silence in the center of the room, munching on a sandwich he’d swiped from the kitchens and not bothering to turn on his bedroom lights. The room is dimming, though.

Prompto wonders if he'd be able to see better if he'd been an MT. Aren’t they designed to thrive in the dark? Isn’t that the cause of their glowing, hateful eyes?

Gladio’s words echo in his head.  _ It’ll never be you. _ And he’s right, to some degree. The chances of suddenly becoming an MT are slim to none now. Besides, Prompto had never felt like an MT until he’d literally stumbled upon copies of himself being prepared to be daemonified and turned into fuel for the magitek army. But the thing is that now that he has seen what he could’ve been, he can’t get it out of his head.

But hadn’t Noct said he didn’t care where Prompto came from?

And now that he’s king, he’s going to make good on his promises, right? Coming together as one nation?

Then Prompto can really be a Lucian, no matter where he’s from.

Prompto buries his head in his hands and sighs.

Okay.

He’ll try it.

But only for Noct.

Rolling through the darkening halls, he tries to formulate what he’s going to say. This is going to have to be an apology, but also kind of a mutual conversation, right? Noct has to understand where he’s coming from. He has to know that Prompto’s doing this for him.

The long dark hallway and looming wooden door to the king’s room comes up far faster than he’d wanted. He’d thought he’d have more time to think.

“No turning back now,” he tells himself.

He knocks on Noct’s door.

It takes a few seconds, but then he hears the soft rustling of bedsheets and then the quiet rhythm of footfalls in the room. The footsteps draw closer until they stop, and then Noctis pulls the door open. He’s in his pajamas already, looking half-awake and sad, but his eyes sharpen when he sees that it’s Prompto outside the door. “What do you want?” he asks, and a scowl falls into place on his face. 

Prompto almost glares up at him. Almost. But then he schools his face into something that he hopes is neutral or at least non-threatening. “Look,” he mutters. “You have to understand that this reminds me of a darker place.”

Noctis blinks down at him. “Okay.” Impassivity really has always been his strength.

“I’m going to hate this,” Prompto tells him. “Like, really. Really really.”

“Okay.”

Prompto furrows his brow. “Do you want me to do this or not?” he asks. It’s kind of hard to tell with Noctis.

Noctis’s lips quirk into the ghost of a grin. “If it’s what makes you feel more like your old self, or just like you can do more, then I’m all for it. And I remember what it’s like. Being in a chair. Learning to walk.” He rubs at the back of his neck, casting his eyes to the sky as he tries to formulate what to say next. Prompto stares at him patiently, and he’s rewarded with Noct’s little sigh and quiet admission: “I want to help.”

There it is. That’s what Prompto’s been waiting for. He matches Noct’s half smile with his own and sticks out his hand. “Let’s do it,” he finally says.

“Done,” Noct replies, and he takes Prompto’s hand firmly.

He can do this. He can do this. For Noct, anything. Prompto shakes Noct’s hand for a little longer than he really needs to, waiting until Noct lets out a surprised, amused chuckle. Then he reaches into his pocket and waves his phone around. “C’mon. King’s Knight?”

“It’s late,” Noctis warns.

Prompto snorts. “Please. Are you thirty or eighty five?”

That brings another chuckle out of Noctis, who gives him a look of mischief through the fringe in front of his eyes. The stark red veins of his skin have long since become normal to Prompto, and when Noctis grins like this, they make it look like he’s glowing. Magic, then, celebrating the happiness of the king. “Can’t say no to you,” he mutters, and he holds the door open further. “Come on.”

“Knew you’d come around!” Prompto singsongs, giving Noctis a toothy grin as he wheels his way into the room. Noct snorts and steps aside to give him more room.

When Prompto looks around the room, it looks a lot more lived-in than it had when he’d first snuck in here a while back to put the photo on Noct’s pillow. He frowns at the window, though: it’s still icy, muffling the rising moonlight into something cool and calm.

“Should you get that looked at?” he asks, nodding his head over to the window.

Noctis follows his gaze and grimaces. “Ah. No. Hard to explain.”

Prompto shrugs. “Okay.” It’s probably a whole thing. 

He wheels his way past the icy glass and further into the bedroom. Huh. There’s his photo, propped up on a bedside table. He grins at the sight. “Looks nice,” he comments.

Noct nods. “You were right. I did want one.”

“Good.” Prompto turns his gaze from the photo and frowns at the bed. Noctis, who’s already taken up his spot on his side of the bed, watches him expectantly. His hand twitches at his side, like he wants to help, but he doesn’t, and Prompto appreciates it. Prompto leans forward and places both hands on the bed, then levers himself out of the chair with his leg. Then it’s just a matter of hopping up into the bed.

He grins toothily at Noct. “Ta-da,” he announces with a little wiggle of his fingers, settling himself against the pillows. 

“Congrats,” Noctis tells him, deadpan as always. “Shall we?”

“‘Course.” On a whim, he sends Gladio a quick text:  _ I’m really really sorry for what I said. Talk tomorrow? _

There are a few minutes of nothingness, and Prompto frowns and boots up King’s Knight, starting a raid with Noctis. But a few minutes later, a notification pings at the top of his screen, and Prompto’s heart lifts.

_ Tomorrow sounds good. _

Thank the gods. He hasn’t completely messed this up with his temper and hangups. He breathes out a sigh and focuses back on the game. Noct’s characters are really carrying this match. Turns out that paying more attention to texts from Gladio than to the match is not good for Prompto’s match score. 

But hey, at least Noct’s doing great.

“Noct another one out!” he crows, because that one’s always made Noct smile. 

It has the desired effect. Noctis barks out a laugh, nudging Prompto with a bony elbow. “Not so bad for ten years of inexperience, huh?” he teases.

“Could be better,” Prompto replies, trying to keep a straight face. “You're a little rusty yet.”

“Shut up,” Noctis mutters, nudging him again, and he focuses on the game again.

Prompto smiles and stares at his own screen, not really doing much with his characters other than watch. This is good. This is really, really good.

He glances sidelong at Noctis. He’s still smiling in the aftermath of the joke, and the curve of his lips is a refreshing break from his usual sullen expression. But there’s still something swimming in his eyes, untouched by the apparent mirth of the smile.

Something cold, something numb.

Prompto hopes it isn’t there to stay.


	11. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning.

Gladio quickly learns how to make himself scarce at the Citadel.

Of course, he technically can come and go as he pleases, but someone would have to know, and that would get back to Noctis or Prompto or Ignis and he doesn’t want that. So he sneaks, breaking rules like he used to make fun of Noct for. There aren’t many guards around, and those that are aren’t used to fighting without the magic of the Crystal. Neither is Gladio, but he’d trained for years before being granted the gift of the armiger of kings. So he slips out through rubble-strewn walkways, crossing the empty plaza under cover of shadow and heading into the moonlit night.

He would probably laugh if he could see himself now. He’s in a worn old tracksuit the likes of which he hasn’t worn since he was in his teens. It’s soft and ratty and warm, though, and it gives him the anonymity he wouldn’t get if he’d worn...well, literally anything else. He’s a big guy. There aren’t many people his size who go around wearing royal black.

He doesn’t go far.

He knows these winding streets by heart, despite the changes they’ve gone through. The cleanup crews have done great work, though, and he mostly makes his way through the wide boulevards unimpeded. In this sector, so close to the Citadel, some of the streets have ugly craters pockmarking their faces, evidence of daemons and war and the ruthlessness of the empire. 

Gladio peers down into the shadowed face of one of the craters. He’s not quite sure what he’s looking for. Maybe he’s hoping to see the shattered ugly corpse of some nameless Nif, someone he can blame for everything that’s happened since he’s last been here. Someone has to be responsible. 

There has to be somebody left for him to hate.

He clenches his fists around air. There’s nothing down there but dust and ashes.

Onward. 

Every step makes his muscles and bones ache. He’s not that old, surely. But the Night and all of its subsequent days have weighed more heavily on him than he’d expected. Without the king’s magic, he feels sapped of some crucial vitality. 

He stops short in the middle of the street and stares. There aren’t any cars around to come hit him, so he’s free to take in a view he hasn’t known in ten years.

_ Home. _

The Amicitia estate mercifully survived the bulk of the destruction of Insomnia despite its proximity to the Citadel. The front door is wide open, evidence of Iris’s flight or looters or maybe both. Gladio shoulder past it and into his family home.

At his back, he can feel the heavy shadow of his father’s eyes. The soft stealthy patter of Iris’s footsteps echoes and rattles in his mind. They’re here with him, watching him take back their ancestral estate.

He’s letting them down. He’s not the Amicitia he should be.

The entry is quite beaten up from what he can see: his grandfather’s shield is no longer hanging from its place of honor by the front door. Gladio curses softly as he walks past its empty pedestal, feeling its absence like an ache in his heart. But as he moves further into his house, the place looks relatively like the way he’d last seen it, with bits turned over as evidence of his sister’s haste to escape. The threat of magitek occupation and the residual respect of the citizens of Lucis seems to have kept their house nearly untouched. 

Gladio heads upstairs, listening to the unfamiliar creaks and groans the house has adopted over ten years of neglect. Somewhere up ahead, a small animal scurries out of his path, disappearing into the inky darkness. Gladio adjusts the setting on his chest light and moves on.

He comes to Iris’s room first. It’s the one closest to the stairs, and more importantly, the exit. Their father really had spared no effort in keeping his daughter safe, and it’d paid off in the end. Iris was safe, after all. She still is.

Gladio pauses in the doorway, held back by some memory of Iris gleefully chasing him out of her room. He can almost hear her voice as it used to be, calling him a  _ big dumb idiot _ or something equally endearing.

Is it so bad that he  _ wants _ to hear that again?

He pushes past the ten year old instincts and goes in anyway. 

The room’s a mess, not at all reflecting the military precision of an Amicitia. Drawers are left half-open, clothes are strewn along the floor, and a bloodstained moogle toy lays innocuously on the floor alongside an equally bloody knife. The blood has long since turned to rust and dust, but it’s recognizable enough. 

A fight? She’d never mentioned anything like that to him. But the evidence doesn’t lie, and Iris is still breathing today, so it can only be assumed that her Crownsguard training had given her the edge in this particular fight. He feels pride blooming in his chest. Because hey, that’s his kid sister. Good for her. Making the family proud.

Gladio gingerly picks up the knife and, yes, that’s one of hers, a decorative antique their father had given to her when she’d begun her Crownsguard training. He tucks it away in the bag he’s brought, resolving to track down Iris and give it back to her. She’ll like the fragment of home, he suspects.

He takes another long look around the room, taking in the innocently cute trappings now destroyed by the remnants of a fight for Iris’s life. Gladio bends and picks up a shattered frame from the floor, inspecting the picture inside. It’s Iris with their father after her preliminary Crownsguard assessment, which she’d passed with better scores than even Gladio. They’re laughing, arm in arm, and for once Clarus is wearing a more casual outfit and not the formal black and gold of a Council member. They look natural and happy, unaware of the tragedy just a few years away. Gladio stares at it, thumbing over the once-familiar lines of his father’s face. He’d almost forgotten what his father’s smile had looked like. He puts the photo carefully into his bag after shaking away the broken glass that’s collected in the frame. 

His own room is the next one in the ancient creaking hallway, and the door is still firmly closed. Like he’d never left, even.

He turns the handle.

It’s like walking back through time. The room is undisturbed. He hadn’t been away for long enough for Iris to miss him, so she hadn’t stolen away into his room to find solace in his possessions. Everything is perfect. The bed is made up with tightly tucked sheets, and even though they’ve gone through the Night with all of the surviving vermin of Insomnia they’re barely chewed at the edges. 

Looking at it now, seeing everything he’d left behind, he can’t believe that he used to have so much. 

Gods, it’s hard to remember that he used to be a  _ person _ once. Before the Fall, before his failures, and before he swore that if he could do nothing else right, he would be a weapon for his king. Here, in this room, is evidence of twenty three years of living for himself.

There are little keepsakes everywhere. Here’s his first greatsword, mounted on the wall. Gladio traces a finger reverently along the flat of the blade, watching it trace a shimmering path through the years of dust and the beginnings of tarnish. It looks so small now, fitted as it was to his still-growing body.

The closet is the easiest place to go. Clothes are impersonal and, luckily, a constant in his life. He tugs down a few hangers’ worth of outfits, including some of his favorite Lucian black. He can’t believe that he hadn’t brought more of these along for the journey. Then again, he’d only thought he was going to Altissia, so he hadn’t exactly brought his full accoutrement for battle and court. He’ll need them now, he supposes. He can’t just go around wearing his ten year old Crownsguard fatigues and new Kingsglaive uniform every day. The familiar, worn feeling of his favorite jacket makes him smile.

“It’s been a while,” he tells the leather, as if it’ll reply. It doesn’t, of course. Still, nobody’s around to see him, and this  _ is _ his room. So.

A few other items get a similar greeting: some old gauntlets that he’d forgotten to pack ten years ago, oil for the leather on the hilt of his sword, and a pair of headphones are recognized and welcomed in turn. “Really could have come in handy,” Gladio mutters to himself. And, really. His hands had gotten cold in Niflheim’s impossible desert, his sword chafed his hands, and he’d never been able to listen to his own music. Minor inconveniences, really, but he’s not about to suffer them any longer. They all go into the bag, tucked away for use back in the Citadel. 

He can’t stay here long. There’s so much in here that brings up dangerous memories. They’re beautiful thoughts for sure, and he’s sure they’d warm his heart and bring a smile to his face, but he can’t afford to melt his carefully imprisoned fears. He lingers beside a framed photo from Prompto, one of the four of them in an arcade, laughing - or just smiling like he thinks nobody can see him, in Ignis’s case - at some long-forgotten joke. It’s a nice picture, and he’s sure that Prompto would love to see it on Gladio’s bedside table back in the Citadel.

But he can’t take it. He’s not that guy. He’s not that Gladio, not after everything. Maybe some time in the future, he’ll come back and fetch it and reclaim that joy for himself.

Just not today.

He backs out of the room slowly, pulling the door closed with a soft click that echoes in the sad, creaking bones of his childhood home. He stares at it for a few long heartbeats before turning his gaze to his final destination.

He’s saved this room for last.

It’s at the end of the hallway, framed in shadow and elegantly carved wood. Opulent only in that it carries the weight of years of legacy, simple only in that his family had never allowed their status to do anything but humble them. It’s all there, in that door.

And it’s waiting for him to open it.

_ Dad. _

It feels almost like a sin to walk into his father’s room unbidden. He’s only ever been in here a handful of times. He’s stumbled into the room as a child, eager to see his father whenever possible, but only lectures and discipline had awaited him once he’d gotten old enough. Stepping inside now is like breaking a ten-year-old seal, and Gladio breathes in a breath of air that somehow feels fresher than the air of the rest of the house.

Clarus Amicitia’s room is pristine. Gladio, when he’d been younger, had thought it bare and unwelcoming, but now that he’s known the weight of duty and the overwhelming compulsion to control everything in his life, he can see the loving humanity in the emptiness. There’s his first Crownsguard uniform, pressed to perfection and hung prominently in his wardrobe. And a letter from Cor, dated some forty years back, assuring Clarus that he’d made it out of Taelpar Crag with his life. And in his bedside drawer, there’s a cache of small photos. They have that same dreamlike quality that Prompto is able to conjure up in his own photographs, just as loving and secret and sacred. 

Gladio almost doesn’t want to look at them. Is he breaking some age-old trust of his father’s by looking at the pictures he holds most dear? Is this the truth of his father’s life, summed up in ink and paper?

He has to look. He has to know who is father was.

The first is a copy of Clarus’s wedding photo with Gladio’s mother, and there’s a softness in their eyes that tells of better times. Gladio inspects the fierce lines of his mother’s face, noting the shades of darkness in her skin which she’d passed on to him. Photos of his mother had always been few and far between after Iris had been born. It’s only logical that Clarus would have kept some for himself. 

The next photograph is bright and bold, capturing the sunny smiles of Clarus and Gladio roughhousing in the courtyard. Gladio’s small here, perched on top of his father’s shoulders with his hands buried in his father’s hair. He’s crowing with glee, and Gladio can almost hear his father’s answering laughter. It hadn’t been long after that that Clarus had cut his hair.

The next one is a candid, older than the last one. Two figures are silhouetted in front of a campfire, overlooking a vast volcanic landscape. Ravatogh, then, or something close enough to it. Gladio recognizes the dark strokes of the Amicitia tattoo on the arms of the larger figure. The other person is in profile, staring at Clarus, and the sharp lines of his jaw and nose seem achingly familiar. If he looks closely, there’s the silvery glint of a sword with the delicate lines of a wing to confirm his suspicions. The photograph has captured something secret and tender, he thinks, and he wonders if Noctis has found something like this among the old king’s treasures.

Another photo, solemn and formal: Clarus and Regis, dressed in black and gold. Clarus has an elaborate shield on one arm and a greatsword in the other hand, point down on the gleaming tile of the throne room. Regis, young and bold and so much like the man Noctis has become, wears the arching crown of of the Lucians and the Ring of the Lucii. He has his sword sheathed at his hip, so unlike the way it would be found in his son’s chest in years ahead. The King at his ascension, then. The two of them make an imposing pair, with Clarus’s amber eyes glowing like flame to counter the icy determination in Regis’s gaze. 

And the last photo is the most recent. Taken not a year before the Fall of Insomnia, it already bears the creases of multiple tender handlings. Clarus sits in his favorite armchair, staring calmly at the camera. Gladio stands at his right shoulder and Iris is at his left, and they match their father’s expressions with practiced ease. They don’t look happy - that wasn’t the point of the photograph - but they look secure. Together. A family.

Gladio tucks the photos away in one of his breast pockets, unwilling to risk them crinkling in the bag. The bundle sits against his chest. It’s a welcome weight that feels warm with memory.

He straightens and moves to the wardrobe. There it is: his father’s noble raiment. The attire of a King’s Shield. Gladio runs his fingers over the strong black fabric of one of the capes. This is his birthright; everything in this house is his to reclaim, and the contents of his father’s wardrobe are there to make sure the world knows. Here is the fate of the eldest Amicitia.

But he can’t claim it.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he murmurs, and he buries his face in the soft black leather of Crownsguard fatigues. It still carries a ghost of Clarus’s scent after all this time, and the memory only makes his breath hitch into a sob. “I can’t do it.”

He almost wishes he could talk to the older Amicitias of years gone by the way that Noctis can call up the Caelums. But magic is gone from the world and he’s hardly an Amicitia worth a damn anyway. After all, what is a Shield if he’s lost his king?

He hadn’t even been the one to bring Noctis back. That’d been Ignis. Strong Ignis, smart Ignis, Ignis who had thrown himself headlong into his devotion to Noctis with such ferocity that he’d been blinded. Ignis, who’d continued to fight despite losing so much. Ignis always had the answers. He could always be an advisor, just like Prompto could always be Noct’s bright light.

But Gladio had failed in his duty so many times. With Ravus, in Altissia, in Gralea, and in Insomnia, Noctis had been in danger. Noctis had gotten hurt. Noctis had  _ died _ . 

And every time, Gladio had emerged none the worse for wear.

Was that his curse? Had Gilgamesh duped him? Was his great gift the power to always be there at his king’s side but to never be able to do a thing to help? 

Gladio clenches his fist in the fabric of his father’s cape. The old fabric stretches in his fist, wrinkling until it’s a mess in his hands. All the better. He can’t wear this.

“Damnit,” he growls. He swipes a tear away from his cheek. Shields don’t cry. He can nearly feel his father’s disapproving glare.

He’s not a shield, not anymore. A sword. He’s a sword.

He packs up the clothing anyway.

When he slinks back into the Citadel, prowling through darkened halls still strewn with dust and streaked with the ancient blood of Glaives, he keeps his bag of spoils clutched tightly to his chest. It bugs him that he’s wrinkling something so precious to his father, but that can’t be helped. 

The robes go in the closet beside the gilded shield. Gladio stares at them for a moment. They sit there, blending into the dark shadows with an almost innocent gleam of gold in the faint light of the moon and lone lamp in his room. And he almost reaches out. He almost takes those things back.

But he doesn’t, because he can’t. Not yet.

He’s a sword. Swords don’t use shields.

He closes the wardrobe firmly. Another day.

“Soon,” he promises himself aloud, but ‘soon’ once was how he spoke of Noct’s inevitable return. ‘Soon’ was ten years of blind, terrifying faith.

Gladio steps away from the wardrobe and all of the secrets he’s hid in it.  _ Soon. _

Just not today.

He barely bothers disrobing; after all, he’s already in his comfortable clothes. He just toes his shoes off at the door and walks leadenly to his bed. He drops into it without much grace, but nobody’s around to judge him for it. One side of the bed still carries the ghost of the scent of Ignis’s expensive old cologne, even though it’s been several days since Ignis had supported him through the night. Gladio knows that objectively, he should wash the sheets, but he likes the illusion of company, so he leaves them as they are and buries himself in blankets to shield against the chill of the room.

There’s a text waiting on his phone from Prompto. Gladio frowns down at it; he’d figured Prompto would apologize, but he’s still surprised at how soon he’s done it. Prompto has always been better at this sort of thing, though. He’s humbler, and he’s always tried to make Gladio happy. Gladio admires him for it, really. To have that sort of character after all he’s been through is the real mark of a soldier.

_ Tomorrow sounds good, _ he types back, and he sends it out.

He doesn’t get a response, but he hadn’t exactly been expecting one. He doesn’t need one, not really. The two of them both know what the other is thinking, in some superficial way. More words will just muddle things further. That’s a problem for tomorrow. And that’s a definitive time. Not soon. Tomorrow.

Iris has left him a voicemail while he was out. Gladio stares at the call log for a moment, and his eyes shift briefly to where the bag of hoarded treasures waits in his wardrobe. Gods, he hasn’t seen her in almost a year, and the calls have been few and far between. He hadn’t even been the one to break the news to her. Instead, he’d been in his room, willing to pass off anything and everything to Ignis. He’s faintly disgusted with himself. Ignis already had so much on his plate, and now it seems an unfortunate pattern: Ignis is always delivering the news of the deaths of their fathers.

He owes it to them to listen to this. He has to face this, one way or another.

Before he can convince himself otherwise, he opens the voicemail and sets the phone on speaker. It lays there on his pillow, silent and dark, and then the message begins.

“Hey, Gladio,” Iris’s voice fills the room, sounding far wearier than he’d ever want her to sound. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get the chance to call earlier. Things are hectic here in Tenebrae, and cell service isn’t exactly stellar right now.” Her tinny laugh echoes around the room, frail and nervous. It’s like even she knows that she’s got nothing to laugh about. “I, um.”

There’s a static-filled silence for a few long heartbeats. Curled up in the dark of his bed, Gladio stares out at the city outside. In the moonlight, it seems so cold. He almost misses the cool foul oppressiveness of the Scourge-choked sun and its poisonous clouds.

“I was hoping we could talk about Dad. It’s just that-” Her voice hitches. “It’s just that we never talked about it. About him. And I was the last one to-” Another pause, and her breath catches in her throat audibly. “To talk to him, Gladio. The day of.”

Gods, of course. Of course she would have. Gladio had left her in there. And their father had let her stay, even knowing the risks. The wave of fear and misery and anger rises in him again, but he quells it, desperate to not miss a second of his sister’s voice.

“Listen, Gladio. We need to talk about this. I don’t know how or when or where, but. We do. I’m here admitting that even though I’ve known for  _ years _ that he’s been dead, knowing that you found him...it’s shaken me. And if I want to be the best I can be, I have to work through this. With you. We need each other, you know? Just like you’re the Shield to Noctis, I’m the Shield for our people. That’s the way he’d want it. I know it.”

Gladio squeezes his eyes shut against the hot warmth of his tears. Gods, he misses her. When had she grown up so much? 

“So just. Call me back soon, I guess. Bye.”

Iris falls silent for a moment.

“I love you, Gladdy. Don’t forget that.”

The voicemail cuts off, leaving Gladio’s bedroom feeling colder than ever before.

Gladio rolls over on his back and stares up at the ceiling. The movement makes his reluctant tears trace lines down his cheeks and into his hair, running damply into the pillow. He doesn’t mind. The tears remind him that he’s still here. In the darkness of his bedroom, there’s nobody watching who can tell him that shields don’t cry.

When he picks up his phone, he flinches and squints against its light. The suddenness only makes his eyes tear up more. He mutters a low curse and dials Iris’s number. Better now than never.

It rings.

Should he really be doing this? Is he ready to talk about it?

It rings.

Dad would want him to.

It rings.

Dad wanted a lot of things from Gladio. Dad would be disappointed.

It rings.

She doesn’t pick up.

Iris’s voicemail tone drones loudly in his ear with all the indifference that only a machine can muster. All the better. Maybe now it’ll be easier to speak if he doesn’t have the pressure of his sister waiting on the other end of the line. Maybe now he can continue pretending that he’s the strong one of the two of them. Gladio clears his throat. He hasn’t really talked much since his confrontation with Prompto earlier in the day, and he can feel the rasp in the back of his throat when he starts to speak.

“Hey, Iris. I, uh. I guess we’re chasing each other at this point. Cor told me that you’d be - that you’d be back here soon.” His mouth almost stumbles and calls Insomnia  _ home _ , but now he’s not quite so sure. “So. I wanted to talk. You’re right. He wouldn’t want us to be like this. He’d want us to be strong.” He doesn’t feel strong, curled up in bed like a child. He wants Iris or Ignis or anybody to be here, to give him the comfort of warmth. “Iris, I want to see you soon. Just come back.”

He waits a second and adds, softly, “Please.”

Another moment ticks by in the silence of his bedroom, marked only by the nervous flutter of his heart.

“I love you too, Iris. Come back soon.”

He hangs up.

The moonlight only makes him sadder. Gladio turns and faces away, pressing his face into the pillows that still carry the smell of cologne and old books. This, at least, is familiar, reminding him of quiet silences in the darkness of Lestallum. The Night was simpler. The Night let him feel numb. Now he’s let Noct die and the sun has risen and melted all of his careful barriers. 

He almost wishes for the sun to disappear again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, I'm a real sucker for photographs. A thousand words and all that, right? :)


	12. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scars, old and new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a VERY long chapter. At least, as far as this fic is concerned. Hope you like it!
> 
> IMPORTANT: Please, please heed the tags on this chapter. There's a fairly graphic description of the aftermath of self harm at the end of the chapter. I've put asterisks (***) just before the section of the chapter where the self harm/possible suicide attempt occurs. The rest of the chapter up until then is more of the same as the rest of this fic, but I want to make sure you guys are staying safe if you want to avoid the topics I've included at the end. 
> 
> Thanks! :)

The weeks pass quickly enough.

There’s plenty to do here in the Citadel. The problem, though, is that there aren’t that many ways to get to all of the things. At least, not for someone in Prompto’s situation. So Prompto keeps to himself. He starts sticking to his office more often than not.

He declines Gladio’s offer to look at the reconstruction they’re doing on the walls of the throne room. He’d have to transfer elevators to do that, and none of them have the time to spare for that.

Monica suggests that he could join her in the shooting range in the depths of the Citadel to brush up on his skills with his pistols. He politely turns her down. He’s better when he has freedom to move and shoot and run, and, well. He just doesn’t have that sort of mobility anymore.

He just sticks in his office with his books.

The books are fine, he supposes. They’re nothing special, but at least they eat up his time.

They keep him from dwelling too much on...everything, really.

Noct has stopped coming around as much. He still shows up and settles himself in various small perches in Prompto’s office, but he always looks vaguely distracted. His touch, when he high-fives Prompto, has gotten warmer. His eyes, when they gleam from where he sits in the window seat of the office, are too bright; it looks like his right eye is all flames. It’s like there’s too much of him crammed into his body, eager for a way to escape. Prompto hopes that it’s just the stress of the job. Noctis has gotten a lot more involved in the reconstruction planning, and there’s word of him planning to see representatives from the scraps of other nations.

They still play King’s Knight, though. Prompto likes those nights. Noct smiles more during their time together, and his laughs are some of the best things Prompto gets to hear nowadays.

Maybe they’ll play tonight. Prompto really hopes they will.

Someone knocks on the door. “Come in,” Prompto calls, carefully noting down a final number. Usually, company means that he won’t get much work in, and he doesn’t want to leave this math unfinished or he’ll forget it entirely. He did that once when Noctis had come over and he’d had to spend an entire hour trying to re-tally the Leiden pepper yields.

It’s Cindy.

“Hey,” she says, leaning easily against the doorjamb. She seems so out of place in the sober coolness of his Citadel office, like a muscle car stuck in a museum exhibit. Despite that, everything she does is still effortless. Prompto can’t believe he’s lucky enough to be her friend.

Prompto grins. “Hey. Long time, no see.”

Cindy shrugs. “Part of the job, sweetheart. Work comes first, and there’s more than enough work to be done.” Twirling a golden curl around her finger, she studies him closely. “Been getting much sleep?”

“Enough,” Prompto answers, slumping back in his chair. Gods, even being in the same room as her brings a smile to his face. “Got work to do. Math.”

The quiet snort of Cindy’s amusal makes him blush. “They sure have domesticated you, haven’t they? What happened to wild child Prompto Argentum?” she teases.

“He lost a leg and turned thirty,” Prompto scoffs.

Cindy’s eyes light up. “The Citadel hasn’t taken your wit yet. No, sir.” She steps further into the room, taking a look around. “Actually,” she continues, “that’s why I’m here.”

“My birthday was months ago, Cindy.”

“Shut up.” Cindy grins down at him. “Your leg, Prompto.”

“What about it?”

“We have it.” Her grin turns wild, and her eyes gleam with that excitement that she gets when a car comes into her shop that needs a complete and utter overhaul.

Prompto frowns. “The leg?”

“Yup.”

“Already?” It’s only been...what? A few weeks? “Haven’t you had other jobs to do?”

Cindy puts her hands on her hips, and her laser-focused eyes fix on him with skepticism and concern. “I wanted to do this for you. We’ve been living like this for ten years; we can wait a few weeks more if it means setting aside the time to give you some peace.”

“Peace,” Prompto echoes. Yeah, that’s what it is. He musters another smile and hopes it covers up the anxiety that’s rising in his chest. It makes his chest hurt with the force of it, radiating down to the end of his thigh where the only skin and bone is a ghost, lost to memory.

“Or close enough to it.” Cindy reaches out a hand. “C’mon, sweetheart.”

Prompto sighs and takes her hand, using his other one to clumsily maneuver his chair out from beneath his desk. It’s a good thing he’d finished his work when he had; he’s not going to be able to focus for days if this really happens.

He follows her down in the elevators to a spot a few floors beneath the main level of the Citadel. Down here, the lighting is warm and bright, contrasting the cold clinical nature of the castle that’s presented to the public eye. Prompto can understand why Cindy likes it here so much. It certainly reminds _him_ of the warm oil smells and soft lighting of Hammerhead’s garage. So far from home, Cindy seems to have found a niche in the austere Citadel. Maybe King Regis had made it this way, years ago, for Cid.

“In here,” Cindy tells him, urging him gently into a spacious room.

There are two engineers in here, dressed not in the red and white of their old country but in the soft pale blue of Lucian scientists. They must have started reconstruction on the royal laboratories. Prompto eyes them carefully. He really hopes he’s not coming across as too unhappy to see them. Because he’s a diplomat now and all, but. Still. He knows where they’re from. They have the look, after all. One of them’s even blonde. She’s got freckles too, spattered across her nose. Do his look like that?

Cindy must notice the way he’s staring, because she places a firm hand on his shoulder, jarring him out of his wide-eyed stupor. “This here is Prompto,” she says. “Prompto, meet our resident engineers, formerly of Niflheim fame.”

“Astrid,” the woman says, and she dips her head in greeting. “It’s a pleasure to be working with Cindy and the recovery effort.”

“Wasn’t aware I was something to be recovered,” Prompto quips, and he winces. Bad approach. Cindy laughs lightly to cover for him, though, bless her. A goddess, that one. A merciful, merciful goddess. He’d take her over Leviathan any day.

“And I’m Nils,” the other guy pipes up to fill the silence. He’s burlier than a lot of the Niflheim citizens that Prompto’s known. Most of them had sharp faces and hair of varying paleness. But his beard is more russet than blonde, and his eyes are a more pedestrian brown, warm and hopeful. Prompto thinks he might like him, but he still holds back his more genuine smiles that he reserves only for his trusted friends.

“Nice to meet you. Both of you. I, uh. I understand you’ve been working hard with the rebuilding.” He’s seen the numbers. They’re impressive.

Nils shrugs, and a soft blush reddens up the skin beneath his beard. “There are plenty of people who are working to help rebuild Insomnia and Lucis in general. We’re just happy to lend our experience and our technology.” He gives Prompto a quick once-over. “And, of course, we wanted to find time to help one of Lucis’s heroes. And the king’s guard, no less.”

Prompto rubs at the back of his neck. “Ah. Thank you. It means a lot that you’d think of me.” That sounds like something Ignis would say, right?

“Our pleasure,” Astrid chimes in. She glances over at Cindy. “Should we…?”

“Oh!” Cindy nods. “Yeah.”

Astrid strides over to a locked metal case and fiddles with the combination for a moment. The lock clicks into their expectant silence like a gunshot. Astrid reaches into the case

Well.

There it is.

Prompto slowly reaches out and lets Cindy place it gently into his arms. It’s heavier than he’d thought it would be, and shinier. The lower leg and foot portions are plated in some light, silvery metal that gleams in the overhead lights. The joints are more exposed, made up of steel and some sort of plastic that cast off oblong reflections when Prompto looks closely. And - huh. The plastic in the knee and ankle is a deep, sharp blue. Is that what his eyes look like now that the red of his cursed heritage has been burned out of them?

It’s certainly...a leg. His leg.

“Well.” Prompto inspects the leg carefully. “You got this done quickly.”

“Do you like it?” Cindy asks. There’s something nervous in her voice.

Prompto graces her with a smile, bright and genuine. It’s not for the leg, though. It’s for Cindy, and everything she has ever done for him, past or present or future. It’s worth it to see her eyes soften with relief. “I do,” he tells her. And he does. He hates to admit it, but it’s beautiful. It’s some of the most impressive engineering he’s seen in a while, and it’s for _him._ He just wishes that the implications were different.

She claps her hands a bit, grinning like there’s no tomorrow. “Great! Great. Great.”

Prompto stares down at the leg again, then back up at Cindy. Then he looks at Astrid and Nils, who are looking sort of expectant. Is he supposed to do something? “Um,” he says, because he’s really not the type of person who’s good with words.

Cindy blinks at him, then something visibly clicks in her mind because she lunges forward to pluck the leg from his hands. “Of course! Let’s put it on, shall we?”

Prompto balks. “Right now?” he squeaks.

“Yes, now. Are you able to untie that for me?”

She’s talking about his pant leg. It’s not warm enough in Insomnia right now for Prompto to be willing to wear any sort of shorts, and he’s not a big fan of suits like Ignis is, so he’s stuck to wearing variations on comfortable Crownsguard-issue cargo pants. They’re relatively loose and thin, and they’re good for tying, so he’s taken to just knotting up his right pant leg so it doesn’t drag. Prompto nods and fumbles at the knot for a moment before it loosens under his prying fingers. He then rolls up the fabric until it’s bunched up towards the top of his thigh, exposing his skin to the lights.

Hm.

He tries not to look at the stump of his leg too often. It’s one of the uglier things about him, in his opinion. Here, the tough silvery scars intertwine with the bright red of his veins; the color is much more vivid here, probably because of the poison and all of the filthy Scourge-infested blood that had been in the area when Noct’s death had purged the world of darkness.

Cindy gently rubs a small amount of lotion onto the stump, repeatedly checking his reaction to the temperature and the sensation. Prompto watches her silently. This all feels sort of like a dream.

And then she carefully slides the socket of the prosthetic over the stump of his leg and straps it on. Cindy presses a switch on the leg’s knee joint, and the metal comes to life with a low electrical whine, arranging itself automatically into a position that looks far more natural than just the limp way it’d been hanging before.

Prompto stares.

A leg.

He has a leg again.

“Up you get,” Cindy urges, and she tugs him up to his feet. “Nils?”

Nils appears at Prompto’s side in a heartbeat, and his steady hands rest lightly on Prompto’s right elbow, propping him up without being too invasive about it. Cindy returns with a pair of crutches, and she helps Prompto get them situated beneath his arms. Nils backs away after Prompto mutters a reluctant _thank you._

When he tries to take a step, he makes the mistake of lifting up his left leg first. As a result, he places all of his weight on his new prosthetic. There’s not much feeling in it other than the odd sensation of pressure on the living stump of his leg, and Prompto gasps, convinced that he’s about to fall. He wobbles dangerously, even with the crutches to support him, and Cindy rushes in and places one hand on his chest and the other on the small of his back, steadying him with her easy strength.

“Okay?” she asks, searching his face.

Prompto nods. “Yeah. I, uh. Just a little unsteady. Not used to having two legs to stand on. New one doesn’t feel much.”

Cindy frowns, pressing her lips into a thin line. “We don’t have the technology just yet to give you much better than this. Astrid,” she says over her shoulder, “do you have experience with that sort of thing?”

Astrid nods. “Nils and I worked together on that kind of electrical interface when we designed some of the pilotable mechs back in the war days. And there was some stuff with the magitek program as well.”

Prompto flinches.

Astrid doesn’t notice. “We can do something similar to the design of Ravus Nox Fleuret’s arm. They got that together without much trouble; I’m sure we can upgrade this leg to do something similar.”

“Good,” Cindy says, and she gives Astrid a firm nod of approval. She turns back to Prompto and meets his eyes. “You okay, sugar? You’ve gone pale.”

“Me?” Prompto stammers. “Perfectly fine. Just a little tired.”

Cindy narrows her eyes, but she doesn’t press the issue. “You should get some rest. Let’s do a couple laps of the room and then we’ll send you back upstairs.”

By the time Cindy’s satisfied with his progress, Prompto’s able to swing himself across the room with a nice momentum to keep him going. Each movement jars at his new leg, though. He’ll have to figure out how to put weight on it without panicking. That’ll come with time, though, he hopes. Prompto lets Cindy help him into his chair and hands his crutches over as well, letting them bustle around him and compare notes on the leg’s performance.

“I’m strapping these to the back of your chair,” Nils tells him from a position vaguely over Prompto’s right shoulder. “So you can have them if you want to walk around at any time. We recommend that you do some practice at least daily to get used to the fit of the leg.”

“Right,” Prompto answers, because it seems like these people expect more than just silence out of him. Besides, Cindy’s here, and she’d scold him if he weren’t at least attempting to be polite.

Nils says a quiet farewell and heads out of the room, tugging Astrid along with him. Prompto watches them go.

At least they can take hints.

Cindy frowns down at him. “You don’t like them.”

“Do you?”

“They’re good people, Prompto,” she says. “And they work hard. They wanted to help you out.”

Prompto crosses his arms and pointedly avoids her gaze. “Well,” he says, and he leaves it at that. She knows what he’s been through. He’s told her what he is.

She sighs. “Okay. Just...just come to me if you need any repairs.”

“I promise I will.”

“You look tired.”

“Not any more than usual, Cindy. Promise.”

“Get some rest, would you?”

Prompto groans. “I’m an adult. I can regulate my own sleep schedule.”

“The hell you can. You went almost a whole week on five hours of sleep in year seven. Don’t you dare think I’ve forgotten. You’re going to get some rest.”

“I will.”

“You’d better. I saw that couch in your office,” Cindy tells him. “I expect you to take a nap on it.”

“There’s work to do, Cindy.”

“Work can wait,” she says firmly. “No arguments.”

Prompto musters up a smile. “Can’t say no to you, Cindy. You’re a star.”

“Don’t you forget it, either.” Cindy pats him gently on the cheek. “Sure you can find your way back okay?”

“I’m good, Cindy. Promise.”

Cindy lingers for a moment longer and then she’s out the door, reminding him to call her back in a few weeks so they can schedule upgrades. Her voice echoes down the hallway as she goes, ringing with reminders and calling Prompto a variety of names that range from affectionate to vaguely insulting.

Prompto doesn’t mind.

He heaves out a breath, staring down at the leg. He’ll have to start wearing his pants normally again if he expects to pass the leg off as normal. Chrome and steel don’t exactly blend in at the Citadel after the age of Niflheim. Any person with a memory going back ten years would look at him and immediately think of Ravus Nox Fleuret, a man in disgrace, dying alone and betrayed in some forgotten corner of Niflheim.

Great.

“Mr. Argentum.” That’s Astrid, hovering in the doorway. Prompto looks up at her in surprise. “Sir, if I may-”

“Not sir,” Prompto interrupts, then he laughs nervously. “Sorry. Just had to get that out. I’m just Prompto.”

Astrid smiles with an equal shakiness. “I’ve seen you around, you know. When you’ve come by Lestallum. They just used your last name when they talked about you, though.” She falls silent, chewing on her lip.

Prompto watches her carefully. “You have something more to say than that,” he says. Because he knows that look. It’s the same one he does when he’s trying to choose his words.

She blinks at him in surprise. “Yeah. I do.”

Prompto makes a little gesture with his hands. “If you have something to say, just. You know. You’re welcome to say it.” The words fall from his mouth with a little less compassion than he might usually use it, and he doesn’t really regret it.

Astrid’s frown deepens into something sad. “Right.”

Prompto waits. He doesn’t have much of anything to say to her, after all.

“Look. I may not know the whole story, but I’ve heard enough about you. What you did for the king, and how you were taken by the Chancellor.” She frowns, pressing her lips into a line as she searches for her words. “And I know that Niflheim and its forces - us, _me_ , even if it was indirectly - hurt you. We took your city and killed your king. And we tried our best to destroy Lucis’s light.”

Prompto just stares at her.

She laughs bitterly, without humor. “Who am I kidding? We were responsible for the Night. And then we sought refuge with you, who we tried so long to crush.”

“We took you in,” Prompto argues faintly, but his mind is spinning.

“You did, and that’s only proof of your goodness. In my eyes, at least.” Astrid pauses and sighs. She avoids Prompto’s eyes for a few long moments, picking nervously at her shirt sleeves. Prompto allows her the mercy of silence. She deserves that, at least. When she meets his gaze again, her eyes are bright and blue and determined.

“What I’m trying to say is this: I can’t possibly know the resentment you must feel towards people like us from Niflheim. But what I can say is that I will do everything and anything I can to make that wound a little less open. To help heal what we did to you.” She nods her head at his gleaming leg. “We owe our lives to you and your king. It’s only right that we try to help you get back to yours.”

Prompto blinks.

Astrid bows her head and starts to retreat. She’s almost out the door when Prompto finds his voice again and calls-

“Wait.”

She waits. Turning back to him, she watches him with eyes wide with some emotion Prompto can’t fathom. Hope? Fear?

“Thank you,” he says. “Really.”

He thinks he might mean it.

She nods. “Right.”

Prompto bites at his lip and looks away. Astrid seems to take the cue, continuing her retreat before she stops again, tapping her fingernail against the metal door frame.

“Also, uh. Just a tip. You should work your way up to walking. Focus on using the crutches and your good leg, and just slowly start adding pressure to the prosthetic. It’ll be slow going, but it could help.”

Prompto nods jerkily. “Uh. Yeah. Thanks.”

Astrid hovers a moment more in the doorway, on the edge of saying a further farewell, before she turns and slips out into the hallway. Her steps mark a quick staccato along the Citadel’s marble floors.

Prompto waits until the sound of her retreat has long since faded away before he dares to head to the elevators.

Back in his office, he sits at his desk and does nothing.

It’s not that there’s nothing to do. There’s a _lot_ to do. There are animal counts coming in from Duscae, and there are finally estimates of fish populations that he needs to log and release to the public. And Ignis needs a report on the updated reconstruction budget. Not to mention that Noct’s been asking him for some sort of estimation of the amount of people who’ll be coming into Insomnia.

He just can’t focus.

He scribbles down a few numbers on a notepad, hoping to force himself into work mode again. But for once, the ever-fluctuating numbers of garula populations fail to capture his interest. It’s a shame, really. Some of the reports even have pictures.

Mercifully, he’s saved from his spiral into inefficiency hell by another knock at his door.

Gods, he’s popular today. “Come in!” he calls. Might as well embrace the fact that he won’t be getting much work done.

The door clicks open, and Ignis steps in. “Afternoon,” he greets.

“That time already?” Prompto asks, checking the clock on his desk. “Time flies.”

“Work?”

“Ah. No.” Prompto grimaces. “I just came back from Cindy’s place, actually. The leg’s ready.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you wearing it right now?”

“Sure am.”

“How does it fit?” Ignis’s voice is light and interested, but he can’t fool Prompto. No, Prompto knows that tone. That’s the sound of Ignis trying his level best to keep Prompto as calm as possible, to gauge his feelings and offer himself as a safe haven. That’s his softer voice, the one reserved for Noct when he was in his dark places or Gladio when he was aching after losing another of his hunters to the Scourge. Prompto’s heard this voice half a hundred times, enough times to know it in his heart. This is the first time, though, that Ignis has used it on _him._

And by the Six, does Prompto love him for it.

He stares down at his leg. Legs, now. He has legs. Two of them. One of them is incredibly shiny.

“Fits well,” he finally answers. “No itch yet. But they warned me that could happen.”

Ignis hums for a moment. “I have a salve in my quarters that may serve. If you should like to use it, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Prompto smiles, even though Ignis can’t see it. He’ll probably hear it in Prompto’s voice, anyway. “Thanks, Iggy,” he says. “Really.”

“Well.” Ignis graces him with a soft, small smile, and his brow softens out in relief. “It’s the least I can do.”

“You already do enough. Too much for me.”

“Certainly not. And besides, I enjoy hearing your more contented side. It’s a welcome change nowadays.”

Prompto smiles again, this time privately. A secret smile. A contented one.

“Care for a walk with me?”

Prompto blinks. “A walk?”

Ignis shrugs and gestures at Prompto’s new leg. “I’ve been meaning to check on the progress of some reconstruction. Dustin is accompanying me, but you’ve always been better at describing the surroundings to me. And now you have this leg of yours. Care to take it for a trial run?”

It’s possibly the best thing Ignis could have said to him. Prompto knows that, if left to his own devices, he’d just avoid the problem that he’s literally wearing. He’d take it off to go to bed and then completely ignore its existence for the next week or so, at least. If he goes on this walk, though, he’ll be forced to confront the fact that people put weeks of effort into making something for him.

So he nods, and he says yes.

Ignis’s gray-green eye lights up. “Splendid.” He makes his way back to the door of the office. “Shall we?”

“Oh, right now?”

“Right now.”

“Is it far?”

Ignis shrugs. “Far enough. Would you like us to bring your chair?”

“Yeah.” Prompto tosses his head a bit, flicking a frustratingly long piece of hair out of his eyes. That’s another thing that needs fixing, it seems. “I don’t think I’ll make it too far on a new leg.” He hates to admit it, but it’s true. And Ignis had seemed so happy when he’d said yes; Prompto doesn’t want to dash those hopes.

“Shall we, then?” Ignis asks, and he accompanies Prompto out into the echoing hallways of the Citadel.

Prompto waits until they’re down at the plaza to get out of the chair. He wouldn’t dare try the stairs inside _or_ outside of the Citadel. At the point where he is now, that’d be tantamount to suicide to try. Besides, it’s like he’s saving his strength.

Prompto stands up without too much effort, using the crutches to prop himself up. Ignis must hear the commotion, because he smiles.

“Up and about?” he asks.

“Up and about,” Prompto confirms.

Ignis nods, still wearing the small, soft smile. “Now that’s a sight I’d like to see. Prompto Argentum, back on his feet.”

Prompto leans over and nudges Ignis with his shoulder without too much shoving

They set out.

Dustin’s pushing Prompto’s empty wheelchair, and Ignis’s cane is strapped to his back for if they have to navigate particularly nasty terrain, and when Prompto looks back at him, he looks like the picture of composure. It seems out of place in the ruins of Insomnia, and awkward as all hell besides. After all, it’s not exactly natural to push an empty wheelchair around. But Prompto doesn’t miss the silver pistols that are holstered at Dustin’s hips, or the way that his eyes are always roaming the streets. Not for the first time, he’s impressed by the ease with which Dustin manages to be a weapon in plain sight.

“Where are we headed anyway?” Prompto asks him.

“Ignis wanted to learn firsthand how the recovery efforts are going. There’s a base of operations away from the city center where we’re ultimately heading.” Dustin checks something on his phone and points up to their left. Prompto can see an overlook in the distance, and some buildings and equipment behind it. “Up there.”

That’s his side of the city. Pretty close to his old house, in fact. Prompto doesn’t mention it, but he still feels something rising in his mind that looks suspiciously like his parents’ faces. he hasn’t thought of them in a long time, actually.

“Sounds good,” Prompto says instead of thinking about them. He can’t have distractions. Not now.

They amble along in relative silence, with Ignis occasionally asking where they are. Dustin calls out street names whenever they take a turn, which Ignis accepts with a quiet, mellifluous word of thanks.

“Hey, there’s the arcade,” Prompto points out as they’re heading through the commercial area. “To your right.”

Ignis turns his head, raising a delicate eyebrow. “Many long afternoons were spent there, if I remember. You made a monster of our prince, you know.”

Prompto snorts. “I just opened his eyes to the greater world of competitive gameplay.”

“If that’s what you’re calling it now.”

Prompto makes a noise of betrayal and stretches out an arm, gently whacking Ignis on the knee with the end of his crutch. Ignis snorts and steps away, muttering something about childishness. He doesn’t mean it, of course, and Prompto ducks his head and tries to hide a small grin in the collar of his jacket. He hadn’t realized how much he’s missed Ignis’s quiet scoldings and his mild ire whenever it comes to Prompto. It’s good to know that that side of their friendship hasn’t disappeared with their youth.

They don’t make it that far before Prompto’s lightly panting, struggling down the street. It takes a lot more than just arm strength to hold him up; his abdominal muscles are working hard to swing him along, and leaning on his left leg is aggravating an old injury on his hip. He makes it for a block or two more, swinging himself forward in a nice rhythm, but a pothole makes him falter. He stumbles, trying his best to recover, and he doesn’t fall, thank the _gods._ But the effort leaves him breathless nonetheless, and Ignis casts a blank look of concern in his direction.

“Dustin, I-” Prompto grimaces around his pride. “I’m tired.” He gestures vaguely with one of his crutches, leaning on the other as he waves it around a bit. “Would you mind…?”

Dustin, may the Six bless him, seems to get the hint immediately. He rolls the chair up to Prompto with exacting swiftness, positioning it just the way that Prompto likes. “I’ll hold on,” he promises from behind Prompto. Prompto’s glad that from this angle, nobody can see his blush. So Dustin remembers the fall as well. And all the people, looking. Whispering.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and he glances over his shoulder to make sure the chair is there. Leaning carefully on his left leg, he lets go of his right crutch. It clatters to the ground, but he can’t find it in himself to mind. He reaches backwards with his right arm, leaning backwards until his fingers close around the armrest. Then he levers himself backwards with his other leg and crutch, letting himself collapse into the chair. Not his most graceful approach by any definition.

Dustin picks up his right crutch from the ground and accepts the left one when Prompto holds it out. He hums a quiet tune to himself, fastening the crutches to the side of the chair with an easy efficiency. Prompto tries his best not to make eye contact with anyone else in the street.

Gods, he hates this.

Ignis starts to walk again, and so does Dustin, but Prompto sits still. He hadn’t realized it before, but leaning on the crutches has significantly tired him out. His arms feel leaden. He can’t find it in himself to push himself any further.

Ahead of him, Ignis stops and cocks his head to the side. “Prompto?” he asks.

Dustin turns, staring back at him. “Is something the matter?” he asks.

Prompto almost, almost, asks them to turn back. He wants to just curl up in bed and take off the leg and ignore the fact that any of today even existed. It would be a welcome escape from every bit of shame he’s feeling right now. “Um,” he says, and even that catches around the rising knot of embarrassment in his throat. “Could you push me?”

“Oh.” Dustin collects himself quickly and hurries back to the chair. “Of course, Prompto.”

“Thanks,” Prompto mutters, but he doesn’t really mean it.

He tucks his chin into his chest and resolutely refuses to look around. He doesn’t want to look at anyone. He doesn’t want anyone looking at him.

He can feel the stares anyway.

They move on.

“Dustin,” Ignis says after a few minutes of silent exploration. “I fear the terrain is getting too difficult. Would you mind passing me my cane?”

Prompto frowns. They’re right in the middle of a street. A cleared street. There isn’t rubble ahead of them for several hundred feet. Ignis must know this; he hasn’t stumbled in ages and Prompto’s chair is making its way along just fine.

But then his jaw falls open as he realizes.

_Ignis, you absolute miracle._

He doesn’t mention it; he knows Ignis would deny it if he did. But he knows what Ignis has done for him, and he appreciates it all the same. When Ignis passes him to grab the cane from Dustin, Prompto makes sure that his knuckles brush Ignis’s.

And if he sees Ignis’s lips curl at the edges, he doesn’t mention it.

They move on.

This street is relatively abandoned; it seems that there haven’t been enough people to necessitate using this area of the city yet. Prompto tells Ignis as much. Their footsteps echo unsettlingly around the shattered storefronts, though, so Prompto supposes Ignis can feel the foreboding aura that surrounds this place. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up for sure.

“What’s that?” Ignis asks suddenly, and his head turns swiftly, angling towards an alleyway off to their right.

“What’s what?” Prompto cranes his neck, searching the shadows.

Ignis’s stance changes almost imperceptibly, widening with a soft scrape of his fine dress shoes in the dusty street. “Dustin,” he says lowly. “If you would.”

Dustin nods and steps out in front of Prompto, falling into a loose defensive stance beside Ignis. One of his hands drops to the pistol holstered at his hip.

_Oh._

Prompto carefully places his hands on his wheels and ever so quietly tries to wheel his way backwards. It’s slow going, but he’s pretty sure this is what Ignis and Dustin have in mind for him. Stay back, stay out of danger.

It goes pretty well up until he runs over a rock, and it ricochets up to hit the axle of his wheelchair with a resounding _crack_.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Three scrawny beasts come snarling out of the darkness of the alleyway, leaping with unsettling speed right at them. Dustin draws his weapon, aims, and fires off a shot with a sharp crack that echoes around the street. The sound makes Prompto’s fingers itch.

The bullet strikes the front beast with incredible accuracy, knocking the creature down as it screeches. The other two continue to bound right towards Ignis and Dustin. One pounces right at Dustin and Prompto almost screams out a warning, but Dustin intercepts the beast midair, dropping into a roll instead of letting the beast bowl him over. He waits until the beast is positioned right above him before he presses the barrel of one of his pistols into its chest and fires. Blood sprays out across the street and all over Dustin, and the creature falls limp.

Ignis faces off against the other beast, which has decided to circle him instead of outright attacking. The creature doesn’t have any idea that Ignis is the predator here; it eyes Ignis with greedy, beady eyes before it drops into a crouch, growling low in its throat. Ignis’s head tilts in the direction of the noise, and he flips his dagger in his hand. When the beast leaps, Ignis is ready for it: he slashes it right down it snout. Prompto might be hallucinating, but he can swear he sees Ignis smile at the sound of the creature’s pained howl. Another leap, and the dagger strikes the creature in the abdomen instead. This time, the beast stays down.

The beast that Dustin had shot in the beginning gets up and growls at the two of them, dripping blood from one of its front legs. Ignis whacks the beast over its head with his cane, and it squeals in pain and anger. It staggers away for a moment, shaking itself before snarling and leaping towards Ignis again. Ignis, with a single dangerously fluid motion, sidesteps the beast and meets it with his dagger instead, catching it as it flies past. The blade tears through the beast’s throat mercilessly, and by the time the creature hits the ground, it’s long into its death throes.

The street falls silent again.

Prompto breathes out. He’d been holding his breath, and his heart pounds a fearful staccato against his eardrums. He hasn’t seen any sort of battle since Insomnia. But Dustin and Ignis seem entirely unruffled, straightening to their full heights and frowning down at the animals on the street.

“Voretooths,” Dustin announces, toeing at one with the edge of his red-soled boot. His shirt is stained with blood now, turning the black fabric into something even shinier and darker and more dangerous. “Nasty. Overgrown.”

“Nice one, Iggy,” Prompto says from his chair, where he’s been waiting. Uselessly. A lot of things he does in the chair feel useless nowadays. “And you too, Dustin.”

Dustin gives him a short, sharp nod. “Of course.”

Ignis brushes a clump of fur off of his shoulder, frowning when his fingers find what must be a still-warm spot of blood on the fabric there. “I didn’t expect too much wildlife in the city proper,” he notes with an air of general concern and frustration. “This’ll be a risk for the citizens.”

“They’ve fought worse for ten years,” Prompto counters. “We all have.”

Ignis pauses. “I suppose you’re right. But we should still put out word to warn them.” He sheathes his dagger and readjusts his grip on his cane. Effortlessly, he slips back into his professional persona, shedding the image of his vicious grace like it had never been there in the first place. And then he’s just Ignis again, chamberlain to the king, pristine and unruffled except for the blood that now stains his well-pressed shirt. “Onwards?”

Dustin makes his way back over to Prompto and takes hold of the wheelchair handles again. “Ready to go?”

Prompto nods, stifling the sigh that’s rising in his chest. He’s resigned himself to it at this point. The powerlessness of it all.

The wheelchair starts to move forward once more, and Prompto lets himself be moved like cargo through the quiet ruins of the city.

By the time they reach their destination, Prompto’s just tired.

The overlook is abandoned right now, but there’s evidence of recent human activity around. A few cans, unrusted by time, lay scattered beneath a scrawny dead tree. There’s a bench that looks freshly painted facing out over the wide expanse of the city.

It’s kind of nice, really.

Ignis settles himself in the bench that overlooks the city, eye wide and roaming the vista before him as if he can actually see it. Maybe he can. The hazy silhouette of the distant skyscrapers against the bright blue sky might be enough of a contrast to resolve itself into a blurry grayscale in Ignis’s mind. But maybe not. He’ll surely want some sort of description, though, so Prompto lets Dustin wheel him up to the edge of the bench so that they’re settled side by side.

He doesn’t bother getting out of the chair to sit on the bench. It’s too much of a hassle, and he’s so tired.

Once he’s made sure that Prompto is securely anchored in his spot - the guard rail on the overlook has long since rusted away - Dustin steps back and clasps his hands behind his back. “I need to go speak with the workers.”

“By all means,” Ignis says, and he gently waves a hand. Dustin dips his head and heads onward, stepping into a nearby building that’s ringing with the sounds of saws and people yelling orders. Once his footsteps fade away, Ignis sighs, and some of his practiced posture bleeds out. He settles into a more comfortable position next to Prompto. “A moment alone,” he says.

“Trying to flirt, Ignis?”

Ignis snorts. “If I were, you’d be swooning already. I’ll have you know that I am a devoted lover.”

“Never took you for the type,” Prompto teases, elbowing Ignis until he winces and the corners of his lips twitch.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about this old man,” Ignis warns.

It’s Prompto’s turn to snort now. “Don’t call yourself old. It makes me feel old.”

“Aging, then?”

“Ignis.”

“Grizzled?”

“Ignis.”

“Certainly not _ancient?_ ”

“Ignis!” Prompto whines, and he slaps Ignis on the shoulder. Ignis huffs out a little laugh of triumph, the bastard, but he falls quiet. At least he has that mercy.

They fall into a comfortable silence. The sun is starting to descend towards the horizon, lengthening the shadows by fractions with every passing second. Below, the city glints dully up at them with its old girders and shattered glass. An imperfect jewel.

“Look at us,” Prompto sighs. “Stuck up a hill.”

“We make a fine pair,” Ignis comments drily. “Eyeless and legless. If Lucis hosted games of coordination, the two of us together would be unstoppable.”

From anyone else, Prompto may well have hated that. But from Ignis...he gets it.

So he laughs, and he’s surprised to find that the giggles are genuine.

Ignis chuckles beside him too, and his shoulders shake with the force of it. Prompto sits back and watches him, working through giggles of his own as he does so. Ignis’s smile is a welcome sight. Gods, when was the last time he’d really seen it?

Ignis’s smile resolves itself into something gentle and quiet as his laughs fade away, and he returns his unseeing gaze to the view before him. “Remind me of where this is, if you could, Prompto.”

Prompto stares out at the city below them. They really have walked for a long while. The Citadel looms in the distance, half-destroyed but still just as incredible as it had been before the Fall. This is the type of view that Prompto is used to: the greater world from afar. And just like that, he’s a kid again, running along this path in the hopes of befriending a prince and making a distant princess proud. He wishes he had his camera with him. If the younger version of himself could see what he’s seeing, he’d go speechless.

“We’re high above the city,” he says softly. “It’s an overlook. Close to my old house, actually. We can see the Citadel from here. The whole city, really. The place looks so nice in the sunlight. Everything’s reflecting the sunlight back at us; I bet you can feel that. I can see some cars down below.”

“Ah,” Ignis says softly. “I remember.”

“It’s a nice view.”

“It is. I can see it now. We came up here once. Noct and I, I mean. He was restless one night. He must have been no older than thirteen, but already he hated being trapped in the Citadel. I drove us out here.”

“Really? Weren’t you...fifteen?”

Ignis laughs: a breathy, wild sound that mixes with the wind that blows around their little overlook. “I was. But being a royal chamberlain has its perks, and one such advantage is being able to bend the driving age for the sake of the prince’s comfort. He never did like our old drivers.”

“Sounds like Noct,” Prompto chuckles.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Ignis sighs, letting his breath out in a soft _whoosh_ until it’s lost to the wind. “Those were simpler days.”

“They were,” Prompto agrees. Ignis doesn’t immediately reply, and Prompto chances a look over at him. Ignis’s mouth has lost all evidence of smiling; instead, there’s a distant, thoughtful frown on his face, making him look older and wearier than he has in a while. “Ignis?” he asks softly. “Everything okay?”

“Ah,” Ignis says softly. “It’s nothing. Passing thoughts.”

“C’mon, Iggy. Don’t shut me out like this.” He huffs out a little breath. “Besides, you’re stuck with me up here.”

That brings a ghost of a smile to the corner of Ignis’s lips. “That I am,” he agrees. “What would you have me do about it?”

“Talk about your feelings for once?” Prompto suggests. “Might shock you to hear this, but real people often find it comforting.”

Ignis tilts his head over in Prompto’s direction; if he had his sight, he might have given Prompto a little glare. But not a real glare, not really. Just an exasperated one. One that might have said _you’re right for once, and I’m not happy about it._

But Ignis is entitled to his opinion, so Prompto doesn’t begrudge him a glare he might have given.

“You’re quite convincing. Have you considered diplomacy?”

Prompto shrugs. “Tried it. I prefer numbers.”

“That you do.” Ignis sets his shoulders and leans back in his seat, narrowing his right eye into the glare of the sun. “So.”

“Noct?” Prompto suggests. “Seems like a place to start.”

“You’re observant,” Ignis says. “I worry about him, Prompto.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know how to get to him,” Ignis sighs. “I don’t know what to do to get him to care anymore.”

“He cares, Iggy,” Prompto assures him. “Come on.”

Ignis shakes his head violently. “No, Prompto. It’s like his depressive episodes back before we left. He’s listless and sad and he doesn’t _care_. Not about Lucis, not about himself. He pretends well enough, but I know him. I know that he’s hiding it.” He buries his head in his hands. “Prompto, what have I done?” He looks so very small despite the long lines and angles of his body. Curled up like this, hunched in on himself like a kicked dog, Ignis looks vulnerable.

Prompto gently rests a hand on Ignis’s back, trying to calm the tremors he finds there. “Ignis, it’s not your fault,” he tries, but Ignis just flinches.

“It is,” he says harshly. He’s never sounded so undone. “I was the one who insisted. I brought him back like this. He never wanted it.”

“He’s happy to be back with us,” Prompto says. “He smiles more now.” He tries to conjure up an image of one of Noct’s new smiles, but all he can focus on is the haunted look in his mismatched eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ignis mutters through clenched teeth. “It’s not the same.”

The wind howls around them, giving voice to every pain neither of them is willing to reveal. Prompto shivers against it and leans closer to the solid warmth of Ignis beside him. Ignis doesn’t comment on it; instead, he braces himself on the arm of Prompto’s chair and tilts himself closer so that Prompto can glean some warmth from the fabric of his jacket.

“I’m sorry I can’t do more,” Prompto says bitterly, because he is. If he weren’t injured, would he be able to be the person that Ignis needs? Would he be able to be a light in a world where all Ignis can see is the constant oppressive darkness? “I know how much you care about Noct.”

“More than you know,” Ignis murmurs. He’s tense beside Prompto, every muscle taut with something more than anxiety.

Prompto knows.

“I hear you,” he says instead, giving up his words to the wind.

They sit in a miserable silence, numbed into silence by the breeze. It’s not the worst arrangement, by any means. Ignis is warm against Prompto’s side, and their breathing falls into tandem at some point. Prompto watches the distant citizens of Insomnia go through the motions of living, and though he can’t see them, Ignis seems to be understanding them on some level Prompto will never comprehend. It’s a delicate balance, this. For once, Prompto isn’t restless, trying to jump out of his own skin to go to the next adventure. Now, here, he’s content to sit with Ignis and try to heal, at least a little bit.

Sometime along the way, Dustin emerges from the building and joins them, sitting quietly on the bench on Ignis’s other side. He doesn’t offer any words to them; instead, he merely stares out at the city below them, searching for something Prompto can’t fathom. Maybe Dustin lost something precious in the Fall and the Night and their poisonous aftermath.

The sunlight feels cold.

It’s Ignis who breaks their silence. “Prompto, you mentioned your old house earlier. Would you like to visit it?”

“No,” he says immediately, and he doesn’t regret his impulsivity for once. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Ignis studies him for a moment, eye blank and inscrutable as always. He must accept what he’s heard in Prompto’s voice, though, because he nods. “In that case, I think it may be time to return home. Unless my senses are failing me, it’s approaching sunset, and we have a sizable journey ahead of us.” He turns. “Dustin, let’s head back.”

The journey back is no less taxing.

By the time Prompto arrives at his little suite in the Citadel, he’s miserable and windblown and tired. The sun has almost completely set, casting his room into frustrating dimness. There aren’t enough lights to fully banish the darkness, though. Every muscle aches; he’ll definitely be taking a long bath later tonight.

Gods, he’s exhausted.

The second he’s settled on his bed, he takes off the leg. It’s an odd feeling for sure; one moment there’s the unfamiliar pressure of a limb on his stump, and the next his leg is exposed to the open air. Prompto winces and stares down at it. It’s odd. For a few hours, even though he’d known the leg was fake, he’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t whole.

“Reality check,” he mutters to himself, massaging the aching skin there. There’s no chafing yet, but the veins there are red as always.

He takes a second to fire off a quick message to Noct’s phone.

_King’s Knight? :p_

There’s no immediate answer, but Prompto thinks nothing of it. Noct’s still probably having dinner.

While he’s waiting, he tries to figure out the specifics of his leg. Cindy had slipped a little note with tips into his pocket, and he consults it under his bedside lamp, fiddling with the ankle joint of the prosthetic. It rolls quite nicely, he has to admit. He takes a towel from the bathroom and wipes up the bits of sweat that have collected in the socket of the leg from where his thigh has gone into it, and he takes some of the polish that Cindy has given him and starts wiping down the shining expanse of the leg. It’s a good thing that he does, because the foot and ankle have collected some dirt and dust from his trek through Insomnia. As the polish is doing its work, Prompto hazards another glance at his phone screen.

Still no reply from Noct.

Prompto frowns down at the phone. Okay. Even if Noct doesn’t want to play, he usually at least texts back. This is very unlike him. And he never goes to bed this early, sleepy as he is.

“He’s fine,” Prompto tells himself, wiping off the polish.

But the thought still nags at him.

“He’s fine,” he assures himself a few minutes later, staring at his exhausted reflection in the bathroom mirror.  He checks his phone again. Still no response.

Prompto stares longingly over at his bathtub. It’s a good one. Like, royalty level. And his leg and arms are really screaming at him to slip underwater and soak in its warmth until his fingertips turn wrinkly. He really, really wants to.

Really, really.

But he hasn’t heard back from Noct. It’s getting late.

Prompto looks once more at the bathtub, then at his woefully blank phone screen. He sighs.

Okay. He’ll go check.

He meanders slowly through the halls, trying not to overexert himself again. His body is sore everywhere, and his arms ache with every push on his wheels, but he powers through it. He’s been through worse than this. Isn’t this kind of thing what Gladio does? Push his body to the limits and then even further?

Well, he doesn’t like it. It seems awfully unhealthy.

 

***

 

He knocks on Noct’s door twice when he gets to it - a force of habit, some old code that they came up with one time when they were dumb kids. “King’s Knight!” he calls through the thick wood. They’ve really gotten good again. Old habits die hard, it seems.

There’s something like a groan that echoes thinly through the door, but Prompto can’t make out what it is. He frowns and knocks again.

“No!” Noctis’s voice sounds through the door. A definitive no. And okay, Prompto gets it. Noctis needs his space sometimes. And Prompto almost leaves.

Almost.

But he knows Noctis, even now that he’s changed and been brought back to life, and he has never heard him sound like that.

He sounds...wrong.

It goes against every rule of etiquette that Prompto’s parents and Ignis had ever tried to teach him, but Prompto knows, somehow, that he needs to go into that room.

“I’m coming in,” he announces, but there’s no answer. A chill runs its way up his spine, but it has nothing to do with the weather. Prompto shivers and pushes the door open, letting it swing open with an ominous, moaning creak of wood on old hinges. The room is barely lit; there’s only the moonlight and the soft glow of a lightbulb from somewhere further inside.

The room is empty.

Something plops to the ground with an audible _drip_ of water on tile, and Prompto frowns, looking for the source.

Oh. That’s weird.

The window in the room is dripping. The unnatural ice that he’d seen before no longer distorts the moonlight into the room, and the silver light of the moon streams in without hindrance. It paints the room with a sickly cold radiance that gives Prompto more chills than the ice ever had.

Something is very, very wrong.

“Noct?” Prompto calls warily, but the lump he sees on the bed is just a mess of bedsheets and blankets.

Prompto turns carefully towards the only place left that he hasn’t looked. The glow of the light from the bathroom spills into the bedroom, casting odd shadows on the floor. There’s one that looks distinctly like a human, and as Prompto turns fully towards the doorway he’s met with the reality of the situation.

“Noct,” he breathes, because that’s all he can say. Because he’s trying to process what he’s seeing.

Noct is sitting on the floor of the bathroom, hunched over with his legs splayed out in front of him. He’s staring down at his hands, or at the floor, or at something far beyond what Prompto can see.

He looks up at Prompto and blinks with excruciating slowness, like he’s only half-awake. This isn’t him. This is something else. Something far, far worse. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he murmurs. His eyes are so, so dull. The blue is so dark that it’s black, and the red is a rusty, poisonous mahogany. It looks like blood. Like the blood -

The blood on the ground.

The blood on the razor clutched loosely in Noct’s hands.

Oh, _gods._

“Noct!” Prompto screams, and everything in his mind turns to blank, unmitigated panic. Without thinking, he launches himself out of his chair with one leg and lands on the hard marble of the bathroom floor. His body screams at him in protest, but he’s not listening. All that matters, all that has _ever_ mattered, is Noctis.

He’s trying to run to Noct, but he _can’t_ , and he’s desperately wishing for his legs, so he crawls instead, pulling himself along the ground to where Noct is sitting there on the tile. Everything smells like iron and fear, and he’s crying too, gods _damnit_.

“Noct!” he screams, and he’s not sure if he’s trying to wake him up or wake up _anybody_ who can help. “Noct, buddy, stay with me!”

He makes it over to Noct and tugs him into a tight embrace. He can’t tell where the blood’s coming from because it’s everywhere at once, staining their clothes scarlet. Something in his mind unhinges, spilling forth memories of green poison and searing pain and the cold tiles of the throne room floor. He’s held Noctis like this before, and only wild magic had brought him back to Prompto safely.

In his arms, Noct groans softly. “Prompto?” he murmurs, but it’s not him, _it’s not him._ The scent of blood is hot in the air, but from Noct it smells like burning too. “Prompto, I’m sorry.”

Prompto screams again, and there aren’t any words, just raw fear.

There’s a pounding of footsteps, and more than one plaintive cry of panic, but Prompto doesn’t hear any of it, not really. All that he hears is his own heartbeat and his mind is screaming-

_Noct Noct Noct Noct nononononono-_

“Prompto!” That’s Ignis, through the veil of horror. Right? “Prompto, let us help!”

There are hands on Prompto’s arms, trying to break his grip around Noctis. Instinctively, he snarls and curls further around Noct. He won’t let them. Prompto can’t let go. He can’t. If he lets Noct go, he’ll go back up the stairs and he’ll die on the throne-

“Prompto!” Ignis again, louder. In his ear.

He blinks. Ignis is there. His mind is screaming but his ears can only hear Ignis. Ignis places warm, shaking hands on his cheeks and tells him, with such gentleness but with a wild urgency, “You need to let me get to him.”

Prompto blinks again. The words work their way through the horror and whirling panic in his mind and he nods, slowly. He lets go of Noctis’s arms and pushes himself across the floor so that he’s supporting Noct’s back.

“There you go,” Ignis encourages. “There we go.” He drops to the floor and takes Noct’s arms in his hands with the utmost care. His fingers carefully search for the wounds, so reminiscent of when he’d come to Prompto’s side that night. Insomnia. “Oh, Noct,” he murmurs, and it sounds like he’s breaking.

“Call the doctor!” somebody yells from the bedroom, and then there are more footsteps and the frantic background noise of people clamoring to find a way to save their king once more.

“They’re not too deep,” Ignis mutters, because he’s the only thing holding them all together and even though Prompto can only hear the mounting panic in his voice he’s still rational, still the same. Still their constant. And then he’s taking off his jacket - _such a nice jacket_ , Prompto thinks idly - and tearing great strips from it with incredible force. With shaking hands, he wraps the fabric around Noct’s wrists.

Noct whines, high and desperate, and he curls in on himself.

“Noctis,” Ignis says with a gentleness that Prompto would think impossible in a time like this. “Noctis, please.” His voice cracks around the final word. He carefully lifts Noct’s bloody wrist again and fastens a knot, murmuring quiet encouragement. “There you go. You’re doing so well, Noct.”

Prompto rubs circles into Noct’s shoulder. They seem to be doing something to calm Noct down, and the hypnotizing repetition is clearing the ugly haze of horror that’s clouding Prompto’s mind.

“Gladio,” Ignis says lowly once he’s finished his grim work. “Gladio, help me get him to safety.”

Prompto hadn’t even realized that Gladio is here. But there he is, filling the doorway with his solid, reassuring bulk. When Prompto looks up at him, his eyes practically burn with something Prompto hasn’t seen in a long time. Gladio scoops Noctis up in his arms, cradling him like a child. It’s too familiar. This has happened once before, in the throne room.

They can’t let it happen again.

His eyes are blazing bright amber in a way they haven’t in ages. There’s something dangerous about Gladio in a panic - he’s a storm, willing to destroy anything in his path if it means saving Noctis. He growls, “I’ve got him,” and his voice could have shaken the stars.

And then he’s gone, thundering through the hallways on the way to the doctor.

“Prompto.”

Ignis again. Softer. Prompto turns to look at him, slowly, like he’s underwater. Now that Noctis is gone, the bathroom feels like an unreal place, stuck in stasis. Ignis’s eye is trailing a stream of bright tears, turning the gray-green of his iris to a glassy silver.

“He’ll be fine,” Ignis tells him, but it sounds like he’s trying just as hard to convince himself. “The wounds weren’t deep.”

“He bled,” Prompto says suddenly, and he winces. It’s the first word he’s spoken since discovering Noct, and his throat is rubbed raw by his screams.

Ignis sighs. “He bled.”

Prompto stares down at his hands. Everything, everything, is covered in blood. Noct’s blood. The king’s blood.

How could they all have been so blind?

“Come,” Ignis says, and he stands. “Let’s get washed up.” He moves quickly to the sink and turns on the tap. From his position on the floor, Prompto watches the water run red as it beads off his hands and into the bowl of the sink. Methodically, Ignis scrubs Noct’s blood from his hands with soap and water.

“How are you so calm?” Prompto croaks.

Ignis pauses. He carefully turns off the tap, letting his fingers linger on the handle for a moment. “Prompto,” he says softly, “I have never been more scared in my life.”

Prompto stares up at him for a long moment. Ignis must feel the weight of his gaze, because he tilts his head to the side and waits, poised like some bird of prey on the verge of being scared off. Prompto shifts and looks away, back down at his hands. He needs to clean them. The smell of iron and fire is everywhere, flooding his senses with the memory of a cramped car in broad daylight, fighting for his and Noct’s lives. “Will you help me?” he asks softly, rasping around the rawness of his throat.

Wordlessly, Ignis turns and searches for his shoulder with a still-trembling hand. His fingers trail along Prompto’s arm until he’s clutching Prompto tightly, and the other arm wraps around Prompto’s chest. He hoists him up without much difficulty, setting him on his unsteady single foot. Gently, he guides Prompto to the sink and turns on the tap for him. Ignis stands beside him the whole time, keeping a hand pressed to the small of Prompto’s back. His hands are probably bloody again from helping Prompto up, but Prompto’s clothes are ruined anyway. Ignis’s hands aren’t going to change that.

Prompto watches the rusty red tendrils swirl down the drain, mixing and mingling with the water as they go. A few large, salty tears bead off of his face and join the mix, disrupting the sinuous trails of the blood. He’s had Noct’s blood on his hands before - a side effect of many battles fought together and not enough potions - but this feels wrong. His fingers stutter and pause, hovering under the cold trail of water.

Ignis’s hand on his back shifts, and a gentle thumb rubs a soft circle into his spine. “Still with us?” he asks.

Prompto exhales shakily and turns off the tap. “Still with us,” he echoes.

He’s not sure who they’re talking about.

“Let’s go down to the infirmary,” Ignis suggests.

“Yeah,” Prompto agrees faintly. “Yeah.” He hobbles over to his wheelchair with support from Ignis. Once he sits down, he notices for the first time just how much pain he’s in. Throwing his aching body out of his wheelchair hadn’t done much to ease his already sore muscles. Now that the adrenaline is starting to drain from his body like poison, the old pains are creeping in, only worse. Much worse.

They set off out of the bedroom and down the hallway, the blind pushing the legless.

It feels wrong to be so quiet, so numb. Prompto’s still trying to make sense of everything that’s happened. He’d thought they were doing so well. He’d thought that Noct was getting better. But he’d failed to accept the signs that he’d seen, and now Noct’s suffering for it.

Noct’s still breathing, though, and that’s all that matters.

Isn’t it?

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This amazing art was done by [craigosaurus](craigosaurus.tumblr.com)! Thank you so, SO much. :)


	13. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguments and recovery.

Muscle memory is mostly what gets Ignis to where he needs to go. Prompto isn’t much help, hunched over as he is in his wheelchair. Ignis can’t blame him; he can’t imagine what it must feel like to be the one to find Noct like that. And besides, Prompto had  _ seen _ him. Ignis had only been able to recognize the broken wail of Noct’s voice and the hot, insistent pulse of blood against his fingers. If he had seen Noct like that, he doesn’t know if he’d be able to hold himself together like he is now.

And even then, he’s not in the best way.

His hands are shaking still, clenching around the handlebars of Prompto’s wheelchair like they’re a lifeline. Maybe they are, right now. He can’t get the smell of blood and burning out of his nose, and they overwhelm his senses so that it’s taking all of his willpower to put one foot before the other. 

Is this real?

How can this be happening?

_ Why didn’t I see it coming? _

He stumbles on, pushing Prompto into the elevator. The doors slide shut with a soft hiss while Ignis tries to reorient them in the small space so that they’re both facing the doors again. “Floor 3, Prompto, if you would,” he says softly. He can’t trust himself not to fumble with the buttons.

Prompto makes a quiet noise, not quite forming words. He shifts in his chair, but the rustle of fabric doesn’t give way to the soft chime of the elevator buttons. 

“Floor 3, Prom,” Ignis suggests again.

Another soft sound echoes around the elevator. Ignis can hardly believe it’s from Prompto; it sounds more like a child, lost and miserable. Like the puppy they’d found once on the side of the road that Prompto had helped. Alone. Hurting.

“Take your time,” Ignis murmurs. All the better; it’ll give him time to compose himself. It’ll give them time to give Noct the help he needs.

Prompto lets out a shaking, rasping sigh and finally his clothes rustle with a new movement. Ignis hears the sound of it so loudly in their quiet, enclosed box. The button clicks, the elevator chimes, and then they’re descending. Idly, Ignis wonders what it must have been like for Gladio in here with Noct in his arms. Had the little box felt like a coffin? Had Noct been deathly still in Gladio’s arms or had he been fighting?

That brings darker thoughts to his mind, of whether Noct would have been fighting to stay alive or to die once more.

He’s happy to leave the elevator.

They find Gladio in the infirmary, pacing steadily back and forth on the hard marble. Ignis can hear his tension in the way that his toes scrape the floor when he turns sharply, and in the audible heavy rhythm of his breath. He pauses when Ignis wheels Prompto through the door, but his footsteps restart with a new fervor once he’s registered their presence.

“Gladio?” Prompto ventures, breaking his previous shell-shocked silence. His voice is still shaking, still wrecked from screaming. Ignis pities him.

Gladio doesn’t grace them with a response. His pacing doesn’t even falter.

Prompto tries again. “Gladio, please. Talk to us.”

There’s a scuff of Gladio’s heel on the marble floor, ringing out like a gunshot in the miserable quiet of the infirmary. 

“Gladio,” Prompto says again. “Wait. Are you…” He pauses, and then his voice takes on an air of wonder. “Are you crying?”

“What of it?” Gladio growls, breaking his silence.

And really, Ignis is confused. Has Prompto never seen Gladio cry? They’ve known each other for over ten years. There’s no way that he hasn’t seen Gladio in the vulnerable state he gets to. Ignis has seen it time and time again; he’s held Gladio in the night for years, soothing him through old griefs and new ones. Gladio’s tears are as familiar to him as his own.

But he’s never cried for Prompto. Not once.

Prompto makes a quiet, broken sound, like a wounded animal. “I’m sorry,” he mutters softly. “I just- I just noticed.” Ignis absently reaches forward and places a hand on Prompto’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Thanks, Iggy,” Prompto sniffs. Ignis pats his shoulder and then lets go, stepping around the wheelchair.

“Come now, Gladio,” he tries. “We need to talk.”

“Do we?”

Tracking the rhythm of Gladio’s relentless pacing, Ignis follows his instinct and reaches out and catches Gladio’s hand as it swings past, stopping him in his tracks. Gladio’s skin is tacky with half-dried blood that transfers to Ignis’s fingers the moment he touches him. It seems that he cannot avoid getting Noct’s blood on his hands, try as he might.

“Your heart is still racing,” Ignis notes, frowning in the general direction of Gladio’s wrist. “Are you sure you’re okay, Gladio?”

Gladio yanks his wrist roughly from Ignis’s grip. “I’m not dying,” he snaps. “I’m worried for Noctis. Shouldn’t you be doing the same thing? How can you be so calm?”

Prompto had asked him the same thing. Is he that hard to read that none of them can see that he’s slowly descending into a state of misery he hasn’t known since Noct had rejected him in Hammerhead? 

“I am  _ not _ calm,” Ignis retorts. “I am merely trying to hold my composure because  _ somebody _ has to. We won’t be able to help Noct if we can’t hold ourselves together to give him the help he needs.”

“Help he wouldn’t need if we’d just-”

“I know,” Ignis interrupts, keeping his voice as low and even as he can. 

“None of us realized,” Gladio mutters. “None of us realized, and then it was too late. If Prompto hadn’t been there-”

“But he was there,” Ignis interrupts. “He was there, and he saved Noctis, and now we’re here and we have to deal with this. There’s no use in dwelling on what could have happened.” But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about it. That doesn’t mean that he knows that if he’d acted on his sneaking suspicions instead of just voicing them to Prompto, they might have been able to do something.

“I’d say what did happen is bad enough.”

Ignis grits his teeth. “I’m not saying it wasn’t bad. Of course it’s bad, Gladio. But it happened, and now we need to work together to help Noct.”

“I carried him here. What did you do?”

“Why are you talking in circles?” Ignis hisses. He’s on the razor’s edge of losing his patience and he’d really rather not cause a scene in the infirmary when Noctis is just beyond those doors somewhere, clinging to life. “Why do you insist on blaming people for what they did and didn’t do?”

“Because it’s a fucking  _ problem _ , Ignis! How did we let this happen?” Gladio bellows. He whips his head around, and stray strands of his hair sting across Ignis’s face as they go. “Prompto was at his side and he saw nothing. Ignis, your entire responsibility is to take care of him, and  _ you saw nothing. _ ”

Ah. 

So they are making a scene, then. So be it. 

That ugly, dangerous, mean part of Ignis rises up in his chest once more, rearing its poisonous head like it had back in Hammerhead, and he snarls, “And what did  _ you _ do to stop it?”

Gladio goes deathly quiet, and an ugly, painful silence crashes down around them. “What did you say?” he asks in the low dark voice he reserves for fury.

“Ignis,” Prompto says quietly. Is he warning Ignis? Does he dare-

No. It’s Prompto.  _ Remember who you are. _

Ignis almost says he didn’t mean it, but he does. He won’t take it back.

“I said,” he repeats, with perfect clarity, “what did you do to stop it?” His lip curls. “Since you seem so keen on throwing blame around.”

“This isn’t the way to do this!” Prompto cries from his spot below them both.

“I say it is,” Gladio snarls, breath hot on Ignis’s face. “I say it’s the perfect time.”

Ignis sneers, “I’m surprised that you’re even bothering to mention it. You’ve been avoiding it for long enough.”

“I’ve had my reasons.” Gladio is close, so close to his face that they’re almost nose to nose, magnetized by the force of their anger.

“You’ve been so caught up in yourself-”

“In his grief!” Prompto protests.

Ignis makes a wordless sound of frustration down at Prompto, letting his voice express his feelings in a way that he would normally never let himself do. He’s never heard himself so unhinged. “We were all grieving! We all lost people in the Fall-”

“He took his father down-”

“And I buried my uncle!” Ignis yells, surprising them all into silence. The force of his voice echoes around the cold, impassive marble of the infirmary. Ignis lets out a breath through clenched teeth, trying desperately to compose himself. “We all lost something, Prompto. And Gladio-” he whirls, turning back to where he can sense Gladio’s bulk and hear the rapid hiss of his breath. “We all lost Noct the first time. We all let him go. We all agreed to bring him back. And we were all there tonight when he tried to end it again. All of us.”

Gladio snorts, but some of the poison is gone from his voice. Not all of it, though, because the acid of his scorn stings around his words when he says, “So I can’t grieve. But Prompto gets a pass because of his leg.”

“Stop making this about other people’s injuries!” Ignis hisses. “You did this after Altissia and I won’t let you do it again. I will  _ not _ let you use Prompto as a weapon against me. And you will  _ not _ use it against him, either.”

“What would you have me do instead?” Gladio asks, voice rumbling with the threat of a hurricane or an earthquake or a punch.

Ignis clenches his fist into the bloodstained fabric of his pants. “I would have you grieve  _ with _ us. I would have you be our friend again. I would have you stand with us to weather out the storm, come what may.”

Gladio remains silent, but anger still rolls off of him with palpable force. He hasn’t gotten out of Ignis’s face yet, still stubbornly refusing to give Ignis the mercy of space. Ignis says nothing more. He’s said his piece. He won’t be holding Gladio’s hand this time to guide him to their side. That’s Gladio’s prerogative.

It’s Prompto who speaks up. “Gladio. Please.”

“After everything,” Gladio mutters.

“We all know why we’re here. Why we’re together,” Prompto says, voice growing into something stronger. “We all know what’s keeping us here. What’s brought us back together after ten years. The only reason we haven’t fallen apart all over again.”

“Noct,” Gladio and Ignis murmur in unison, cowed by Prompto’s boldness.

Prompto makes an approving noise. “Exactly.”

Gladio huffs out a breath and leans away from Ignis. He doesn’t leave, though, and he doesn’t start throwing anything, so Ignis supposes he can count that as a win.

“What’ll it take for us to stop falling into these arguments again?” Prompto asks, and there’s a weariness in his voice that just makes him sound old. Older than thirty, older than he should be. “Another death? Another attempt? We all need to own up to this. We all need to be there for Noct.”

Ignis sighs, and he reaches up to tug off his visor. It just makes his head feel tight and uncomfortable. He can’t think with it like this. With his other hand, his presses on the bridge of his nose, trying to will his headache into submission. It’s late. Far too late for things like this. “I know,” he admits, and he can hear Prompto sigh with relief. “I know.”

“You have blood,” Gladio says, startling him.

“Beg pardon?” he asks warily.

Gladio’s hand is at his face in an instant, pressing something soft and warm against the bridge of his nose and gently wiping. It tugs a bit at his old scars, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. Besides, the fabric is warm and smells familiar. Smells like Gladio. His shirt? A handkerchief?

“On your nose,” Gladio says. “You got blood on your nose.”

It feels like a peace offering.

“Thank you,” Ignis murmurs.

Gladio mumbles something that sounds like modesty or an apology or  _ I missed you.  _

Prompto reaches out and takes each of their hands, gently. Ignis lets him. The contact is nice; it grounds him. “Come sit,” he urges. “We might have a while left to wait.”

“Yeah,” Gladio says, voice back at his usual timbre, if a little unsteady. A little dazed.

Ignis lets Prompto tug him gently over to a hard row of chairs and settles into one. It’s more like he collapses into one, but nobody comments on it so at least his dignity is intact. Ignis lets his head dip down, staring aimlessly at where his hands should be. He turns his visor over and over in his hands, running his fingers over the hard, austere lines of plastic and metal and glass. His mask. His guard. He wonders if it would have helped if he still had his sight.

“I did nothing. I stayed away.”

Gladio’s voice is surprising to hear in their unsteady silence, and the words even more so.

“You were scared,” Ignis says. “I understand that.” And he does. And maybe he forgives Gladio for it, too. He hopes that Gladio can hear that in his admission, that he knows Ignis well enough to hear the apologies that pride keeps him from saying aloud.

Gladio’s breath hitches, but he keeps his voice under control. Iron will has always been Gladio’s strongest suit, after all. “I was scared,” he admits. “I still am. I always am.”

“And that’s okay,” Ignis replies. Because it is. “I know that fear.”

“Losing him?” Prompto chimes in, raspy and sad.

“Yeah.” Gladio’s voice is distant and rough. “Yeah.”

They fall silent.

Ignis isn’t sure how long they sit there in the cold impassive infirmary waiting room. The chair is stiff beneath him, and the temperature does nothing to ease his discomfort. Prompto is wedged in beside him on his right, and Gladio is leaning in his general direction on his left, so that’s at least a small comfort. He almost drops off into slumber from sheer exhaustion, but he can’t rest until he knows that Noct is okay.

For now, though, all he knows is that he has his friends by his side, and that’s enough.

“Excuse me?”

Ignis raises his head, trying to compose his expression into something passable. “Yes?” he asks, because he knows that Prompto and Gladio are relying on him to be their voice.

“Master Scientia, sir. I’m the doctor on call.”

Ignis stands with a swiftness that surprises him for how weary he feels. “Yes. Of course,” he breathes out in a rush. “Is there any news? Is he okay?”

“His Majesty is recovering well.”

There’s a wave of relief that ripples through the three of them all at once, exhaled into a sigh. Ignis feels some of the tension drain from his body, and it just leaves him feeling boneless and tired, but also alive. Hopeful. He hasn’t been faced with the decision of holding Noct’s fate in his hands. He hasn’t torn Noctis from some unimaginable paradise once more. There’s just Noctis, safe and alive and breathing just rooms away. “Can we go see him?” he asks.

“Of course, sir.”

Such deference from this doctor. Ignis doesn’t deserve all that, truly. He’s hardly done anything to help their king. He’s the reason Noct is even here in the infirmary, after all. But he doesn’t contest it, because he’s not about to cause another scene.

For a moment, Ignis is so caught up in the wave of excitement and relief that he almost just follows the doctor’s voice until he reaches Noctis. That’s all his mind can think about: just an endless stream of  _ Noctis _ which refuses to be silent. And he almost does it.

But he holds himself back, because he is the king’s chamberlain and he was raised to be better than this. He turns and looks in Prompto and Gladio’s direction. “Coming?” he asks, tilting his head towards the doctor’s voice.

“You should be the first,” Prompto says. 

Ignis blinks. “Why’s that?”

Prompto’s hand finds his, just a light brush of knuckles against knuckles. A reassurance. A promise. “We all know why,” he answers softly, voice cracking around the words.

“Gladio?” Ignis asks, because he’s not just going to accept it and go. He’s not going to go barrelling past their wishes, because he knows what happens when he acts without thinking. 

“Go on,” Gladio encourages quietly, and his low voice has a bit of warmth to it. “Make sure he wakes up among friends.”

Ignis can’t help but smile.  _ How have I gotten so lucky to have friends such as these?  _ “I would have you there as his friends as well,” he tells them. “As mine.”

“We have all the time in the world,” Prompto assures him. “Go.”

Ignis dips his head into a nod, hoping that his face is conveying the sheer force of his gratitude. He lingers for a moment more, uneasy about leaving his friends where he can’t keep track of them.

But the pull in his heart named  _ Noctis _ is stronger than his fear, and he allows the doctor to lead him into the infirmary proper and down a hall towards a lonely, warm room.

“The chair is here, Master Scientia,” the doctor tells him, and a gentle hand nudges his own over to the back of a chair. He waits until Ignis has lowered himself into the seat before he speaks up again. “And His Majesty is right in front of the chair, lying in bed. You’re seated at his shoulder.”

“My thanks,” Ignis says, inclining his head. He’s impressed with the doctor’s thoughtfulness when it comes to his blindness. 

“I’ll leave you alone. Don’t hesitate to call if you or the king needs anything.”

The door clicks shut, and then it’s just Ignis and Noctis, silent in a somber room.

Here again.

Ignis sits next to an unfamiliar bed in a hollow city, but the circumstances are all the same. Everything brings them back to Hammerhead. Noct, unconscious. Bloodied. Hurting. Wishing he was dead.

And Ignis, the one who pulled him back again.

There are other times like this that he remembers. Different events in different times. Different Nocts in different beds. They all hurt, in their own ways.

_ “Will he be okay, Uncle?” _

_ His uncle pats him gently on the shoulder; Ignis tries not to think about how now there’ll be a wrinkle there. Noct had told him to worry less, so he’ll try. For Noct. “Ignis, the prince is still recovering. Besides, what happened in Tenebrae was very serious. Seeing what he’s seen has come as a shock to him. Besides, he probably misses Lady Lunafreya.” _

_ Ignis doesn’t like that his uncle still uses small words with him. He’s nine now, and he’s allowed to read the bigger books in the adult section of the library, but only if he promises to ask the librarian if he needs the dictionary. His uncle should remember that. Ignis will be an advisor just like him someday, and he won’t be any good if he doesn’t know any big words. But he shouldn’t yell at his uncle. No - he shouldn’t reprimand him. That’s a good word. Three syllables. _

_ Instead of reprimanding his uncle, he instead peeks back in through the bedroom door. Prince Noctis is asleep in his big bed, barely filling up a pillow. His hair does, at least, splaying out in a dark halo around his head. It’ll be an absolute mess come morning, and he’ll ask Ignis to help him clean it up before he goes to his physical therapy. _

_ He looks so small. _

_ “He’ll be okay,” he announces solemnly. _

_ Ignis’s uncle chuckles. “I’m sure, Ignis. But why do you say that?” _

_ “Because I’m here now,” Ignis tells him, because it’s obvious. “I can help Noct now.” _

_ “That you can,” his uncle admits, and a small smile. _

_ “One day, he’ll be king. And I’ll be there for him.” _

_ “Let us hope yours is a long and prosperous friendship, then, so that the king may always have an advisor such as you.” _

_ Ignis smiles - a rare thing for him to do - and peeks back through the door to where his best friend lies peacefully. “I hope so, too.” _

Ignis frowns down at his Noctis, this Noctis, on the bed before him. This Noctis is so much larger than the eight year old Ignis had once known, but still he retains so much of the fragility that had made Ignis fear for his safety. His hair, when Ignis allows himself to reach out and brush at it, is just as soft and long and wild as it’s always been. His breaths still come too quickly to his desperate lungs, a remnant of old trauma from the Marilith attack. And now the newer fragilities, the ones that Ignis has in some part bestowed upon him by bringing him back to life: the knotted scar on his chest, the soft unnatural texture of his magic-burned skin; the stark fiery redness which Prompto has told him of. And a different type of hurt is beneath his skin, full of misery and regret and memories of that precious afterlife that Ignis stole from him.

He wishes he could solve this in some easier way. That this wound could be some more palpable thing, one he could lay his hands on and fix.

But he’s hurt Noctis in an impossible way. And it’s a problem he’s not sure he’s fit to fix.

_ “How does it taste?” _

_ Noctis frowns around the spoon in his mouth, holding it there for a little while. “Mmph,” he mumbles. _

_ Ignis raises an eyebrow. “Come again?” _

_ Noct swallows and lets Ignis remove the spoon. “It’s good,” he repeats.  _

_ Gods, he sounds so congested. Ignis had warned him, after all, that jumping into the lake at this time of year to retrieve a particularly large fish would not be the best for his health. But had Noctis listened? No. Of course not. And now he’s bedridden with some sort of monstrous cold. _

_ “I added more ginger than last time, if you’ll believe it.” Ignis dips the spoon back into the bowl of soup he’s cradling, picking up more soup.  _

_ “Keep doing that,” Noctis tells him. “Really. It’s good.” _

_ Ignis hums out an acknowledgement. “My uncle always told me that chicken soup is the best for times like this. Here, take care you don’t spill.” He reaches out the spoon again, and Noct lifts his head weakly from the pillow to accept the offering. _

_ “Mmm,” Noctis hums, and his eyes slips shut as he savors the broth. “I should get sick like this more often.” _

_ “Have you learned your lesson?” Ignis asks, setting the bowl aside. _

_ Noctis blinks up at him with fever-bright eyes. Ignis has never seen eyes so blue in all his life. He smiles, and even though he’s flushed with fever, it’s still the most brilliant thing Ignis has ever seen. “Why bother learning,” he teases, “when I’ll always have you to help me out of my messes?” _

_ “A dangerous mindset,” Ignis warns, but he’s smiling. Of course he is. _

_ He can’t say no to Noct. _

This can’t be happening.

“Noct,” he murmurs, clasping a limp hand with soft skin that burns hotter than would be safe for anyone but his king. “Oh, Noct.”

He bows his head, pressing his forehead against the spot where his and Noct’s fingers are interlaced. “I have so much to apologize for,” he whispers. 

Noct stays silent, stoic, and asleep.

Ignis deserves as much. The silence.

He squeezes his eye shut against his tears and waits for Noct to wake.


	14. noctis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion and discussion.

There’s light here.

It stings at his eyes, even through his eyelids. He wrinkles his nose, frustrated that he’s been woken up by something out of his control. Shouldn’t there be curtains on the windows? His bedroom window doesn’t even face east.

Wait.

Where is he?

He doesn’t open his eyes, not yet. For a second, he lies in - well, whatever he’s lying in - and tries to take in his surroundings. Everything feels sore and miserable, and there’s a peculiar burn and sting in his arms. And his head hurts. But he’s lying on something soft and warm, and the light makes him feel safe. Like sunlight.

There’s a part of him that burns, and it calls out with bright hope that this light is something he’d known once. Was it a dream? A memory? Or is it just the fragment of a place he’d been before, for too long and not nearly long enough?

_ Luna? _

His eyes fly open.

And-

Oh.

The infirmary. It’s familiar. He’s spent countless hours in here as a child, going through therapy sessions for his walking after the Marilith attack and recuperating after particularly draining magic classes. He’s been in this exact room, probably. If he squints at the ceiling, he can see the trailing hairline crack that he’d traced time and time again to pass the time. He’d thought that he would never be here again.

And yet.

Something is wrong. Everything is hazy in his mind, obscured by a miasma of poisonous heat. It feels electric, like magic fermenting in his bones. There must be something he can do about it. He’s alive, then, and that means that there’s something that can be done. Somebody, somewhere, must be able to do something. He turns his head with incredible, agonizing effort, and-

And there’s Ignis.

Of course it’d be him here. He’s perched in a soft chair at Noct’s bedside, fast asleep with his chin resting in one of his hands. Being asleep doesn’t seem to have given him any sort of peace, though, because his brow is furrowed into a frown. And there’s blood on his hands, flecked along his fingertips and staining patches of skin with the faint suggestion of rust.

_ That’s mine. _

On instinct, he reaches out to Ignis: not with his hand, but with his magic. It’s so natural that Noctis thinks nothing of it, only reflexively tries to probe the connection that has always held them close ever since he’d welcomed Ignis into the armiger. Ignis should be there, just an arm’s length away, easily within his grasp. And Noctis knows what it should feel like, all controlled blazes and soft starlight between his fingers.

But there’s no magic left to hold them together, and the traces of the astrals in his blood only scorch him.

Noctis bows his head.  _ Wishful thinking _ . He’d forgotten himself. Ignis is here in the room with him. There’s no magic between them except the phoenix down which had dragged Noctis back into Ignis’s arms.

But somehow, his silent struggle must do something, because Ignis’s right eye flutters open.

Noctis sits silently and watches him.

Ignis’s iris, gray-green and unseeing, flickers around the room, staring at everything and nothing all at once. For once, he’s not wearing his visor, and it leaves his face looking unguarded and open. He raises his head from his hand, wincing a bit as his neck straightens out. “Noctis?” he calls lowly, staring steadily in Noctis’s direction. In his voice, Noctis’s full name sounds more like a prayer than a calling card, like he’s conflated Noct’s name with  _ Majesty  _ and  _ Highness  _ and  _ only. _

Noct tries to form words, but his mouth is too dry. He makes a miserable rasping noise, and Ignis springs into motion, reaching out blindly. His hands find a cup and pitcher of water that have been left on his bedside table. 

Carefully, Ignis pours the water into the glass, not spilling a drop. His hands are shaking, though, which can’t be helping. But Noct, for all that his head is spinning, is distantly impressed by Ignis’s ability to pour the water without spilling it. Wordlessly, Ignis hands over the glass. When Noctis takes it from him, his finger brushes Ignis’s, but none of them mention it. Noctis flinches at the suddenness of the touch, and Ignis’s face twists with a phantom grief, but he doesn’t say a word.

Noctis takes two long, deep gulps of the water, relishing the feeling of the liquid spilling down his throat. It feels like he’s been wandering Leide for years. Everything is dry and hot and uncomfortable. Ignis waits patiently, head cocked to listen to the sound of him drinking. Right now, it’s his only proof that Noctis is alive and breathing.

“Ignis,” Noctis says when he feels like he can speak again, and it’s like that was the best possible thing for him to say. Ignis’s face relaxes into something that’s not quite a smile, but it could have been. It must be. The blood on his face only makes him look more wild, more human.

“Majesty,” he murmurs. “ _ Noct _ . You’re awake.”

“Was I asleep?”

Ignis shakes his head. “Not for as long as you might be thinking. Only a few hours, at most.”

“Was I dead?”

A shadow seems to fall over Ignis’s face, and he bows his head. So he knows something. Or he’s just ashamed. Or afraid. “No,” he says, breathing out the word on the tail end of a sigh. “No, you were never in any danger of dying once we found you.”

Noctis sighs. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s relieved or upset by that. “I remember bits and pieces,” he admits. “Images. Prompto screaming.” He frowns. “He crawled.”

Ignis nods, and his face twists into an expression Noctis has never seen before. “He crawled,” he acknowledges, and he runs his fingers over the handle of the water pitcher, desperate for some kind of touch. Noctis doesn’t blame him.

“And then you were here, and you wrapped up my arms. You helped me.” He can see it in his mind; he can hear the way that Ignis talked to him, soft and delicate and desperate. The memory feels like an embrace, even though it’s tinged with the recollection of burning, of unbecoming. “And then Gladio picked me up. He carried me. And then I was here. And-” He cuts himself off and stares down at his arms, lifting them to his gaze. It hurts to move them, but it’s the first time he’s looked -  _ really _ looked. And they’re ugly. They’re bound tightly in thick white bandages that smell like starch and antiseptic. It makes him feel like an inpatient. It makes him feel uncomfortably alive.

Ignis must know that he’s looking, because his hands still on the handle of the pitcher of water. “Surprised by what you see?” he asks quietly.

“No,” Noctis says. “No, I remember. I know what I did.”

“We weren’t sure if you would,” Ignis admits. “The way you sounded…” He trails off, biting at his lip. It’s a surprisingly human gesture, and very unlike him. “The way you sounded when we found you...it was like you were dreaming. Like you weren’t yourself.”

He remembers. Vaguely, at least. Every memory from a few hours ago is tinted red and hazy, swimming with a heat he can’t get past. And his right arm burns when he thinks about it, like the pain of having too much magic and not enough body to hold it all. But he can still recall the look on Ignis’s face, and the sound of Prompto’s screams, and the way that he’d felt overwhelmed and entirely unprepared to be alive. “I was myself,” he says. “I remember everything. I did everything.” He fixes his gaze on Ignis. “I know what I did,” he repeats. “I meant it.”

“So you meant to die tonight?”

“I did.” 

It’s an ugly sentence to say aloud, and Ignis winces to hear it, but it seems like both of them had expected him to say it. There’s more resignation in Ignis’s eye than shock, and his mouth is set into a thin line that speaks of acceptance, or of regret, or something worse. Noctis bows his head and flexes his fingers, relishing the sting of the stretch of the skin across his wounds. His hands are so asymmetrical; one burns an ugly gray with veins of fire, and the other is achingly human, pale and simple. But now there are bandages across them both, serving as proof of him trying to make himself right again.

He doesn’t really regret it. Not really.

“I see,” Ignis says, voice clipped and strained.

“Yeah,” Noctis replies to fill the silence. 

Ignis bites at his lip again and closes his eye tightly. He takes a breath to compose himself, letting it out in a soft  _ whoosh _ of breath. “Would you have liked it better if we had left you to die?”

“Which time?”

Ignis huffs out a breath that’s harsh and bitter, not quite a laugh and not quite a sob either. “Which time indeed,” he mutters.

Objectively, Noctis knows that right now, this isn’t the time to be bringing up such poison between them. But maybe it’s the best time. Now, when Noctis feels at his most vulnerable, his only defense is to attack Ignis with all the vitriol he can muster.

But the hate burns, and it just makes the haze in his mind worse.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says.

Ignis frowns even more, if that’s possible. “Don’t lie to spare me,” he says, almost sounding like his old self. “I can take it. I deserve it, for what I’ve done.”

“What you’ve done?”

“Damage, and enough of it. To everyone. And especially to you.”

“We all do things we regret.” Noctis can certainly list a few.

Ignis shakes his head. “Not like this. Not the violation. Not what I’ve done to you.”

“But I’m still here now.”

Ignis makes a stifled noise of frustration. “But you don’t want to be, Noct!” he hisses out, but it doesn’t sounds like he’s angry with Noctis. It just sounds like he’s telling that to himself.

Noctis frowns. He almost reaches out to grab Ignis’s hand, but he stops himself just before he puts his aching body into motion. “Listen, Ignis - Iggy,” he tries, but a wry bitter smile crosses Ignis’s face, and he tries again. “Ignis. I’m trying here. I know what I did, but I know where I am now. And I’m sitting here talking to you about how you pulled me back again. Do you think I’d do that if I hated you for it?”

“But the first time-”

Noctis cuts him off. “I’m not talking about the first time,” he insists, surprising himself with the force in his voice. Has he always sounded so old? Has he always sounded like his father? “I’m talking about  _ now, _ Ignis.”

Ignis shifts, fingers going white against the handle of the water pitcher. “And?”

“And I have questions.”

“About why?” Ignis snorts, but there’s no derision, just exhaustion. “If you asked me to list the reasons why I’d want you alive, we’d be here for quite some time.”

Noctis knows. Of course he knows.

“Not why,” he says. “Before. Before I came back. I need to know.” And he wants to know it. He wants to know what the darkness was like. Here, in the soft sterile sunlight of the infirmary, and after the endless light of the Crystal, he could do with a little darkness. Maybe the lack of light would bring him down from this miserable heated high he’s on. Maybe it could get him to feel a little more human again.

“Anything,” Ignis tells him. “Anything.”

“What was it like waiting? Not knowing if the sun would ever rise again?" He pauses. "If it would ever get better?"

Ignis sighs, and his sightless gaze fixes on something far above Noct’s head. “Those feelings of hopelessness came and went,” he answers. “They still do.”

Noct turns his head to the side, studying the sunlit lines of Ignis’s face. “But?” he prompts, because he can hear the word unspoken on the tail end of Ignis’s sentence.

“But there are always brighter points in the darkness.”

“Like what?” He needs to know them. He wants to know what Ignis used as his lifelines in a world that wanted him dead. Maybe they’ll help Noctis in a world that wants him alive.

“The thrill of a fight, for example. Protecting those who cannot help themselves. Reuniting with Prompto or Gladio after months apart. Small moments of hope in a darker world.”

Noctis nods. This much, he’d expected. Trust Ignis to list things like this. “And that made you happy?”

“Not happy, exactly.” Ignis blinks slowly, as if the darkness beneath his eyelids is safer than the darkness in his gaze. “Just calmer. At peace.”

“Is there more?” He knows there is. He needs to hear him say it.

“There were times when I indulged. Small selfish things.”

Noctis watches the way Ignis’s jaw shifts and clenches around a sneer or a sob. “You? Selfish?” he asks, and he hopes his tone is light enough to work. He’d joked like this, before. Before. 

It has the desired effect. Ignis’s jaw loosens, and though he doesn’t smile, the small twitch of his eyebrow makes all the difference. “Perhaps selfish isn’t the word,” Ignis admits. “But impractical in a world under cover of night. Stocking up my own rations to make dishes.”

“But you always cook.”

“Ah.” A ghost of a smile crosses Ignis’s lips and disappears again, leaving him looking worn and miserable. “I do. But sometimes I indulged. I made special treats. Pastries. You might recognize them.”

_ Oh. _

He does. Of course he does. Of course Ignis would find solace in something so familiar, so private. “The pastries from Tenebrae. You made them?”

Ignis fixes his gray-green stare directly on Noctis. “Noct,” he says, “I made them every year.”

“Every year?”

“On your birthday. When we ran out of ulwaat berries, I substituted them for something else.” Ignis stares down at his hands, flexing the fingers as if he can see their restless motion. “Sometimes Gladio or Prompto would come by, if they could. And some years, they didn’t. And it would just be me.”

“Why?”

Ignis shrugs, and he huffs out a laugh that’s breathless and accompanied by the saddest smile Noctis has ever seen. “Habit, perhaps? Or hope?” Another laugh, mirthless. He shakes his head, and it’s more like he’s laughing at himself, mocking himself for something Noctis can’t hope to understand. “Some old devotion.”

“Old because it doesn’t exist anymore?” After all that’s happened, Noctis would understand.

“Old because it always has.” Ignis’s gaze finds his again with unerring precision, as if he never needed sight to find Noct. “Noctis, I am and always will be your servant. Or your friend, or your advisor, or something else. In whatever capacity you would have me, I am yours.”

Noctis blinks. The hazy heat in his mind clears a little, as if Ignis’s words have supplied some sort of cooling balm.

“Were they good?”

Ignis frowns. “Sorry?”

“The pastries,” Noctis clarifies. “Were they any good?”

“Passable,” Ignis admits. “They were missing something critical.”

They both know what it was.

"Noct, I need to talk to you. About that night, in the throne room-"

Noctis shakes his head violently. "Not you. Not now." He can't do this with Ignis right now. He just wants the unconditional warmth that Ignis has always been able to lend him. "Later. Please." He raises his hand to swipe at his face and feels his fingers come away wet with unnoticed tears. “Please,” he repeats, and he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for.

“I understand,” Ignis says. 

Noct’s breath hitches. Gods, he hates this. He can’t control it; he can’t control himself. He hopes that Ignis doesn’t hear it, but he knows he does.

“Six, Noct,” Ignis breathes. He’s so close, hovering just beside the bed, but his shaking hands don’t make contact. He’s waiting for something. Permission?

Noctis can’t help it - he sobs. It’s ugly and painful and makes his old chest wound ache in unison with his heart. 

“Gods, Ignis, just-”

“Just what, Noct?” Ignis is frantic; there’s a note in his voice that sounds like fear. Is he worried that this will be just like Hammerhead? Is he worried that Noctis will turn him away?

Noctis manages, “Just hold me,” before he collapses into disgusting, aching tears, shaking with the force of his grief. 

It’s like there was only a thread holding him back. Ignis is on him in a heartbeat, carefully clambering up into the bed to squeeze in beside him. His arms wrap around Noct’s torso, tugging him close deftly, taking care not to aggravate his wounds. They haven’t done this in years, not since the night after they’d killed the Marilith when Noctis had needed the constant warmth of Ignis’s embrace under the light of the stars. The feeling hasn’t changed in ten years, and for the first time in endless eons, Noctis feels completely safe.

Noctis turns his head into Ignis’s chest and weeps.

“I feel so much,” he sobs. “Why do I feel so much?”

It hurts, the feeling. Not the pain in his chest or the sting in his wrists from the old wounds and the new, but something deeper. It’s in his heart and it’s in his head and it’s in the place where Noct remembers the sound of Luna’s voice telling him  _ After all this time- _

He welcomes it, though. He breathes it in.

Ignis holds him even tighter and presses his nose into Noctis’s hair. The pressure brings him back into himself, letting him register the tenderness of his touch. “Because you’re human,” he breathes. “Because you’re here, and you’re alive.”

“I’m alive,” Noctis repeats in between deep shuddering breaths. “I’m alive.”

Each breath stabs at his chest, reminding him of pains old and new, physical and spiritual, but he draws the air into his lungs with a greediness he hasn’t yet known. Every breath is a painful physical reminder of every time he’s lived or died or tried to do either once more. 

He cherishes every one.

"I won't ask why," Ignis says, carding his fingers through Noct's hair.

"I could tell you," Noct whispers. "But I think you've probably figured most of it out."

“Perhaps I don’t know you as well as I presume to, then.” But there’s still a deep sadness painting his voice, and that just makes it worse.

“You know enough,” Noctis murmurs, and he lets Ignis make of that what he will.

Ignis’s hands have migrated, and they’re framing his face with total care. A thumb rests easily on the curve of one of his cheekbones, pressing down on it to give him something to focus on. Noctis leans into the touch, letting Ignis brush away one of his errant tears.

How is it that Ignis always knows what he needs?

“Shall I have the doctor prescribe something? There are medications, Noct, that can help with things like this. The depression, or the feelings-”

“I want it,” he says firmly. “The feeling.” He does. He really, really does. Slowly, he attempts a smile. Before the razor, before the feeling, every smile had felt wrong, like someone had cut out a picture of one and forced it onto his face. Now, even though there’s nothing to be happy about, and though he’s far from happy, the fraction of a smile that he can muster is the most wonderful thing he’s ever done.

Besides, it’s worth it to see the way that Ignis smiles when he feels Noct’s expression change.

“You don’t need to smile if you don’t want to,” Ignis murmurs, swiping a thumb across Noctis’s cheek. “I’m not here to force you.”

“I want to.” And he smiles again, because he can, and because it makes Ignis smile in that wild, breathless way he’s adopted. He’s not happy. Really, he’s not. But in the infirmary, with nobody to watch him or force him to be a king, he can let himself have this. He can let himself cry here with Ignis where he knows he’ll always be safe.

He needs to heal all over again, now. Only this time, he’ll be feeling instead of hiding, letting the emotions burn through him instead of letting them crash against a barrier of ice. He’s up to the challenge, and he tells Ignis as much.

Ignis smiles at him, face open and vulnerable and shining with tears.

And that’s enough for now.


	15. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation and apology.

“Tell me a joke.”

“No.”

Prompto frowns up at Gladio. “Okay.” But he pouts. He’s not above that. You can never be too old to pout, in his opinion.

“Is this really the time?” Gladio grumbles. He rolls his head around, wincing as a crack bubbles up from his shifting bones. “Gods, that hurts. Shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”

Prompto stretches his own arms above his head. He’s sore too, and he still hasn’t gotten a decent amount of sleep since his outing with Ignis, but...extenuating circumstances, and all that. At least he’s caught a few winks of sleep in the meantime, waiting for Ignis to return with news of Noct’s recovery.  “Haven’t you heard of a distraction?” he asks. “Because I sure have, and I’d love one right about now.”

“I don’t blame you,” Gladio admits, but his jaw is still set into a stony frown. He looks down, picking at a fleck of old blood that’s caked onto one of his nails. 

“If not a joke,” Prompto tries again, “how about a story?”

“A story?” Gladio scoffs. “Give me a break.”

“Gladio,” Prompto says. He reaches over and places a hand on Gladio’s arm. “Hey, buddy. Look. I know we’re shaken up about this.”

“You can say that again.”

“I know. I know. Trust me.” Even thinking about it, talking around it so casually - it hurts. Just mentioning it makes Prompto’s heart race and his breath hitch around adrenaline and his own fear. “But we can’t just sit here. We have no idea how long this is going to take, and I don’t know about you, but sleeping’s not working.”

Gladio raises an eyebrow, but it’s not in a mocking way. It just makes him look open and curious and sad. It’s so unlike the Gladio that Prompto knows that Prompto almost stops trying. If this is what Gladio gets like when he’s panicked and miserable, Prompto never wants to see him at the height of his fury. “No?” Gladio asks. “You were just sleeping a few minutes ago.”

“Wasn’t good sleep,” Prompto mutters.

“Nightmares?”

Prompto makes a noncommittal noise, folding his arms across his chest and hunching over them. When he hazards another look up at Gladio, he’s watching him with steady, sad amber eyes.

“It’s okay to admit it,” Gladio says. “I know what they are.”

“Noct?” Prompto guesses, because that’s what his are like. He can only imagine that Gladio’s would be the same.

“On the ground,” Gladio adds, and something faraway glasses over his eyes. “Bleeding.”

“Which time?” Prompto asks bitterly, and he kicks out with the one leg he has left to him.

“Does it matter?”

Prompto kicks out again, and he winces when the painful ghost of his right leg tries to complete the motion as well. “Suppose not.”

“What a mess,” Gladio mutters. “We should have never come back here.”

Prompto’s not quite sure what he means. There are so many places they shouldn’t have returned to, and so many times when they could have turned back. In the Night, before the dawn and his leg and  _ Noctis, _ they’d stood on the cliffside overlooking the steel bones of the bridge to Insomnia. It had been the place where it all began, and where their ten-year-old journey had turned from a trip to Altissia into a quest of sorts, and where it’d all started to go wrong. Only fitting, then, that they would camp there before they would come full circle. Noctis had been quiet that night, still shaken by his confession by the fire.  _ Prompto _ , he’d said, staring into the darkness where he was destined to die,  _ I don’t want to give this up. _

_ So stay,  _ Prompto had begged him, quietly, because he was desperate.  _ Stay with us for a little while longer. The world can wait. _

And Noctis had smiled - the last time Prompto saw him smile for a long time - and said,  _ We both know I can’t do that. _

And Prompto had let him go. He pretended to make his peace. He let Noctis lead them into Insomnia, and then it all went wrong.

Or now, tonight - or this morning. He’s not sure what time it is anymore. Insomnia has given them nothing but grief ever since they’d arrived under the rising sun. This is proof that maybe they would have just been better off in Hammerhead where Noctis had woken and the bonds between them had cracked. Maybe they should have gone their separate ways, broken and separated by Noct’s presence instead of his absence. Maybe then Prompto would have been the only one to stay at Noct’s side, and they would have been best friends again.

Or maybe they should have just let Noctis die.

“No,” Prompto agrees faintly, because even softer, happier memories can’t hope to obscure the pain that their lives are built upon now. “No, we never should have come back here.”

The two of them lapse into a thoughtful silence. If Gladio notices the way that Prompto leans just a little bit closer and savors the reliability of his bulk, he doesn’t say anything. Prompto’s glad for that; he’s not sure he could handle a discussion of his various vices and hang-ups right now.

“But,” Gladio adds quietly, “a story might help to pass the time.”

Prompto doesn’t smile, not really, but he’s pleased that Gladio’s going to indulge him this time. His lips twitch, and the memory of a smile must be enough, because Gladio’s lips do the same. They’re not okay; hell, Prompto doesn’t know if they ever will be, but this kind of easy togetherness is just what they both need. 

“So,” Gladio says. “What kind of story would you like to hear?”

“A good one,” Prompto says. “One I haven’t heard before. One I wasn’t here for.” He rolls out from his position against the wall and repositions himself so that he’s facing Gladio. He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. Or, he tries to. Not having a knee on one of the legs sort of complicates the process. He really, really hopes Gladio doesn’t notice him wince.

“Hey, is that leg okay?”

Prompto blinks.  _ Shit. _ “Which one?”

“The missing one. The, uh. The stump?” Gladio sounds uncharacteristically tentative. “I mean, I just. Saw it.”

“Oh.” Prompto looks down. There’s blood all over his sleep shorts and his leg, standing out against the pale fabric and the near-whiteness of his skin. The blood makes a stark, ugly picture where it fills in the lines between his scarlet veins. And the stump is there too, angry and red-veined and stained with blood that’s not his own. It’s nothing like the original wound, with the poison and the dread, but somehow seeing it covered in blood again just makes him feel worse. Because it’s Noct’s blood, and it’s the second time this has happened. Because it’s Noct’s blood, and it’s Prompto’s fault that he’s spilled it.

But he can’t tell Gladio all of that.

“It’s fine,” he says instead, because that’s easier.

“You’re a shitty liar,” Gladio tells him with all the frankness of a person who knows he’s right. “C’mon, let me see it.”

“I’m fine,” Prompto insists.

Gladio rolls his eyes. “Stop trying to be a hero. Let me help.” He leans forward and nudges Prompto’s elbow out of the way. Prompto sighs and moves his arms out of the way, sitting back so that Gladio can inspect the stump of his leg.

The pads of Gladio’s fingers are rougher than Cindy’s had been when she’d gotten him ready to wear his leg yesterday, but the intentions are the same. Gladio carefully pushes up the fabric of Prompto’s shorts and probes gently at the skin there, checking Prompto’s reactions after every touch. He whistles when he shifts and reveals a bruise blooming across much of the skin there, half-hidden by flaking blood.

“I knew you were on the ground but...I assumed you got there responsibly.” Gladio grimaces and inspects the bruise. “I’m guessing you didn’t.”

“Less of a responsible dismount and more of a flying leap onto the ground,” Prompto admits. “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.” And that just brings him back to the cold marble of the bathroom and the feeling of Noctis shaking in his arms. He flexes his fingers on old instinct, trying to grip something he hasn’t touched in ages. His guns, maybe, or just some scrap of himself he hasn’t known since he lost his leg. Maybe if he’d been whole, he could have done more. He would have carried Noctis on his back to the infirmary if he’d been able to. But he isn’t, so he didn’t. And all he has to show for it is a growing bruise.

Pathetic.

Gladio hums softly, and he starts to gently massage at the tender skin on the end of Prompto’s leg. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but the touch sinks into his leg with a force that is, for once, not there to harm him.  “Understandable.”

“Good to hear your approval.”

“When did you stop respecting your elders?”

Prompto smirks, then twitches with an involuntary giggle when Gladio’s fingers ghost across a ticklish spot on his leg. “You did that on purpose,” he accuses, pouting down at Gladio. “Aren’t you supposed to be thirty three, not  _ three? _ ”

Gladio chuckles low in his throat. “Let an old man have his fun. Besides, you deserved it.”

Prompto deigns to ignore that bit. Instead, he focuses on the peculiar feeling of Gladio’s fingers on the part of his stump where the rest of his leg should be. “You’re good at this.”

Gladio shrugs, and the movement tugs lightly at his fingers on Prompto’s skin, sending a shiver up Prompto’s spine. “Part of my training was understanding muscles and soreness and stuff. Mostly applies here. Besides,” he adds, and his gaze turns critical as he looks Prompto up and down, “you look like you’re sore all over, so it applies for sure.”

“You remembered all that training?”

“Twenty some-odd years of practice, Prompto,” Gladio reminds him. “I started young.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

“Guess so.” Gladio presses a thumb into a particularly sore spot, waiting until Prompto’s hiss fades into a sigh before he resumes. “Okay, so. The story.”

Prompto lets his eyes slip closed and tilts his head back, trying to eke some sort of relaxation from this half-tender ritual they’re doing. With his eyes closed like this, it’s easy to forget that he’s in the infirmary and that Noctis is hurting just a few rooms away. Maybe that’s how Ignis copes with stuff like this. If he can’t see it, did it even really happen? “The story,” he prompts. “Go for it.”

Gladio makes a small hum of concentration and then begins.

“There once was a prince-”

“Once?”

Gladio winces, and his hands fall still on Prompto’s leg. “Uh. Still. Still here. Just, uh. This story’s in the past, though.”

Prompto nods jerkily. “Yeah. So. The prince.”

“The prince,” Gladio echoes, and his fingers resume their careful ministrations. “There once was a prince who loved to fish and sleep. He spent a lot of his time in bed, even when he technically should have been training. For all that he skipped his meetings, he was pretty much a model prince.

“But one day, he wandered out and didn’t tell anybody. There was no trace of him anywhere. Everybody in the Ci- in the castle searched for him. The king was worried sick, and that day it felt like the walls were alive with his magic as he looked for his only son. People say that all throughout the city, they felt like the Wall was the strongest it had ever been or ever would be. Like the king’s fear made it more powerful.”

“Did they find him?” Prompto asks.

“They did, after a while. There was a public pond far from the city center, fed by a tiny stream that trickled in from beyond the Wall. And sitting at the pond was the prince. He didn’t tell anyone how he got there, or why. But they say that it was the Marshal who stumbled upon him that day. They say the prince was barefoot, letting his feet dangle into the water. And all around him were the kids of the city. Half of them had no idea who he was, but he treated them all the same, showing them the proper way to cast a line.”

“I never knew that,” Prompto murmurs.

“Not many people do.” Gladio chuckles quietly. “Guess that’s why it’s such a good story.”

“Then what happened?”

“Ah, the king was angry at him at first. For running off and all. But the Marshal and the King’s Shield told him where they’d found him, and then the king did something odd.”

“What’s that?”

“He smiled.”

Prompto raises an eyebrow. “Did he not do that?”

“Not as often as he used to. But things like that made him happy. Or at least they made him smile. He let the prince go to that pond whenever he wanted after that. He took his friends sometimes, actually, until he got too busy and had to stop going so far from home.”

“Did the prince have any friends?”

Gladio smiles softly. “Yeah, he had a few. A scrawny kid who was still more interested in books than in taking risks, and a bodyguard who didn’t know how to quit.”

Prompto tilts his head to the side. “They sound fun.”

“They sound young.” Gladio shakes his head, letting his fingers skitter absently along the red-streaked skin of Prompto’s thigh. “They sound like they had no idea what they were doing.”

“They were kids.”

“They were,” Gladio admits with a sigh. He blinks up at Prompto, raising a wry eyebrow. “They ended up meeting another kid a few years later. He was scrawny, too. Never stopped asking questions.”

“I remember him,” Prompto says, and that old twinge in his heart aches in unison with his phantom leg. That kid is gone now, he thinks.

“Yeah, me too.” Gladio’s eyes have taken on a miserable cast, turning from warm amber to the muted, resigned hue of the leaves when they fall to the ground to die. “They were good kids.”

They fall silent once more, and the only sounds around them are Gladio’s even breathing and soft rustle of clothing as Prompto tries to keep still. There’s something building in Prompto’s chest that’s not quite tears, for once. It feels like anticipation and nervousness. Faintly, from a distance, he hears the purposeful click and tap of shoes against marble. Someone’s coming.

The steps grow louder. Prompto knows that rhythm; he’s heard it hundreds of times, in arcades and on the hard stone of havens and on the metal in Zegnautus Keep. And he knows that the steps bring news. He’s not sure if he wants to hear it or not.

The door opens with a faint creak and click, and Prompto’s heart stutters.

There’s Ignis. He’s been crying. They’ve all been crying, and Prompto knows his own face is a mess of tears and blood, but something about Ignis’s face looks haunted in a way that is beyond what Prompto’s ever seen. Ignis drops himself into the nearest chair with none of his usual grace. Here, now, he just looks human and so, so tired.

“He’s stable,” Ignis says into the silence. Prompto hadn’t even asked, but he’d known. Of course he’d known. Ignis always knows what to say. “The doctors say that he was never in any true mortal danger. But he’s running a fever, and the blood loss weakened him significantly.”

His words hang in the air between them, waiting for something to happen. Prompto doesn’t want to respond to them. It’ll make them real. It’ll make  _ this _ real. 

But his curiosity gets the best of him, even now, and he asks, “Is he awake?”

Ignis nods. “He was asleep for some time after I came in, but he woke towards the end.” He angles his head towards Prompto. “He wants to see you.”

Prompto glances over at Gladio, whose face has gone carefully blank. “Sure?” he says.

“Good.” Ignis’s eye fixes on him now that he’s pinpointed Prompto’s voice. “You can go now, if you’d like.”

Prompto backs away from the row of chairs. “Right.”

But his eyes keep flicking to Gladio.

“Come now, Gladio,” Ignis says evenly, with that light tone he gets when he’s defusing a situation. “Let’s have a nap while Prompto and Noctis talk. You don’t want to be seeing the king if you haven’t slept.”

Gladio seems to have picked up on the tone, of course. He knows Ignis’s game as well as Prompto does; probably more. He’s had more than enough years to pick up on every one of Ignis’s idiosyncrasies. And even though his eyebrows twitch into a frown, he still scoots over in his chair until he’s pressed up to one side, leaning easily against Ignis. He catches Prompto looking and jerks his head a little bit towards the doorway in a clear dismissal.

Prompto nods. He knows when he’s needed elsewhere.

Before he heads into the ward, he glances back at the row of hard, ugly chairs. Ignis is there, gracelessly draped against Gladio’s shoulder, eye already starting to droop closed. Gladio seems to have accepted his presence without a problem, and his eyes are already shut, allowing his face to smooth out into less obvious lines of distress. They look almost peaceful.

Prompto hopes that this is the calm after the storm and not the eye in the middle of a hurricane. He hopes, above all else, that there isn’t more danger lurking behind them, ready to swoop up and ambush with them more misery or pain or death.

He turns away. The hallways is ahead, and so is Noct. He can’t look back now.

Slowly, he wheels his way down the sterile marble hallways of the infirmary. When he peeks inside, he can see that some of the beds are occupied: there are a couple of burly people nursing leg and arm wounds, and other beds just hold sad, quiet people coughing weakly into red-veined hands. Construction workers and former Scourge patients, then. Prompto knows that feeling. The lingering soreness in his entire body is proof enough of how his body has faltered in the absence of Niflheim’s touch.

The last few doors lead to empty beds in empty rooms, each one a disappointment and a relief all at once. And the last door is half ajar.

And there’s Noct.

The white sheets don’t exactly help to dispel the mental image Prompto has of Noct like this, weak and hurting. He looks small under the sheets, and tired. The gray and scarlet of his right side stands out with fiery contrast against the pristine whiteness, making him look all the more alien here. He looks like a figure out of history books, an ascending king brought low by the punishments of the world. He just looks...sad.

But he’s alive. He’s  _ alive. _

He looks up when he hears Prompto enter.

His eyes are bright again. They’ve got a glint in them that reminds Prompto of wild magic and the power of the gods, but somehow they are overwhelmingly  _ Noctis. _ The blue is so familiar that it hurts, and the red has its own scarlet familiarity, shining out at Prompto in a hue that reminds Prompto of his own veins. And they’re both warm this time, instead of exuding only fire and ice in lieu of emotions. Far mellower, then, than the poisonous extremes that had dwelt there before.

“Prompto,” he greets him quietly, and a half-smile flits across his face, tentative and small.

It’s all that Prompto ever needed to see. He can die happy, right now. There’s life in Noct’s face again, and it shines from every part of him: his eyes, his skin, and that smile. “Hey, Noct,” he replies, and of course his voice cracks, because that’s his luck. But it’s also the truth, because he hadn’t realized how broken he would be without Noct until he’d almost lost him.

_ Again, _ his mind reminds him traitorously, but he ignores it. Or tries to.

“Thanks for coming to see me.”

“As if I wouldn’t.”

Noctis snorts softly. “Guess so.”

“You look...better.”

“Do I?” Noctis looks down at himself, then around the room. “How so? I think I kind of look like a mess right now.”

“Well, not like that,” Prompto assures him, then winces. “Uh. Not so say you look  _ bad _ -”

“Prompto.” Noctis is raising an eyebrow, looking vaguely amused.

“But you just look...healthier?” Prompto waves a hand around, trying to search for the right words. “Like, uh. There’s light in your eyes.”

“Light in my eyes.”

“It’s a good thing, I promise.”

“Guess so,” Noctis repeats, and then he inspects Prompto, eyes flicking up and down to take him in. “And here you are.”

“So here I am.”

“No leg?” Noct asks. “I heard that you had it. Yesterday, I mean. Before.”

“Before,” Prompto echoes, and his face falls. Before.

Noctis frowns; he seems to have realized that maybe that wasn’t necessary to say. “Uh. But. No leg?”

Prompto shrugs. “No time. I’ve been here.”

“You haven’t left the infirmary?” Noctis asks, incredulous. There’s so much feeling in his words, and even though the situation isn’t the best, just hearing Noctis get frustrated is so much better than the faded attempts at emotion he’d tried before.

Before.

“Why would I? I was waiting.”

“You slept here?”

“I have a chair,” Prompto reminds him.

“For  _ movement- _ ”

“I can sit in it just fine.” He wiggles a little in his seat, because he’s not above being a child about it, even now. “See?”

“Yeah, I see it,” Noctis mutters, and the long-suffering tone in his voice sounds curiously like Ignis. “Prom, just promise me you’ll get some rest.” 

It’s the first time that Noctis has said his nickname in ages. For that, Prompto would do anything. “Promise.” He tries to put on a half-baked grin, but it just comes out lopsided and wrong. “But I don’t think that’s why you brought me here.”

“Ah.” Noctis grimaces. “You’re right. Prom, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“Anything,” Prompto swears, leaning forward in his chair. “Anything that you want to talk about.”

Noctis bites at his lip, worrying at it for a moment while he studies Prompto with his unnatural two-tone eyes. “I think you might know already,” he says.

Prompto does. Of course he does. That doesn’t make it any better, and it doesn’t lighten the pit in his stomach that’s threatening to sink and drag him down through his chair and away from here. “I think I do.”

“About before. Insomnia.”

“The dawn.”

“The dawn,” Noctis confirms, and his red eye flashes with dormant magic. “We need to talk.”

“We do,” Prompto agrees, and the guilt is already bubbling up in his chest like poison.

“I hope you know that I’m not going to be nice about this,” Noctis tells him, eyebrows creasing into a faint apology.

Prompto shrugs and attempts a smile. “Ah, no worries. I can take it.”

“I don’t need you to be strong for me, Prompto.” And there’s a glint in his eyes that’s almost kingly, reminding Prompto of the few times he’s locked eyes with King Regis and seen a solemn, resigned sadness. “I need you to be you. Here. With me.” He reaches out with a burn-scarred, bandaged arm and lays his hand gently on Prompto’s arm. Like this, the lines of their scarlet veins cross and make spidering pictures across the canvas of their flesh. “I just need you to be my friend.”

“I can be that for you,” Prompto says immediately, and he means it. “I can be anything you want me to be.”

The look on Noct’s face turns even sadder. “Oh, Prompto,” he says with something that might even be pity. “I know.”

Prompto tries to smile again, because maybe that’s what Noctis wants from him. “Hey. I’m here. I’m ready for anything you have to say.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” He’s firm about it this time. “I know what happened.”

“So.” Noctis blows out a breath. “I was dead. That first time, in the throne room.”

“You were.” Prompto remembers. He can still smell the blood.

“You weren’t the one who used the phoenix down.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That was Ignis,” Noctis tells him, as if Prompto hadn’t been there.

“Yeah, that was him.” He can still see the fear on Ignis’s face, can still hear Ignis telling them  _ We’ll have to try. We have to, for Noct- _

“And you let him.” It’s not an accusation, not really, but there’s pain behind the words.

Prompto bites at his lip. “I did.”

“Why?”

“You’re-” Prompto falters, and then his voice goes soft. “You’re the king.”

“I shouldn’t be.” Noct fixes his gaze on a floor tile ahead of them. Prompto is almost glad for it; he doesn’t know if he could bear to have Noct’s two-tone eyes on him. “Prom, I was dead. I died to end the Scourge and fulfill the prophecy.”

Prompto retorts, “But the prophecy didn’t say anything about staying dead.”

That must strike something in Noctis, because he whips his head around, eyes blazing. “And what if I wanted to?”

Prompto recoils, edging away from Noctis. “Noct?”

“I was  _ dead _ , Prompto. I was safe and happy. I was with  _ Luna _ and my  _ dad _ . And then-” He clenches his fist around nothingness, like he’s grasping smoke and memory. “And then you brought me back.”

“Noct.”

“How could you?”

And it’s the way that Noct’s voice cracks that pushes him over the edge. Prompto shudders for a moment and then he’s crying. It’s the ugliest thing he’s ever done, and he’s embarrassed and ashamed for more reasons than just that he’s sobbing. But he doesn’t stop looking at Noct, because he can’t  _ hide _ from this, damnit, and he forces himself to see the pain in his best friend’s eyes. “Noct,” he gasps, fighting the hitch in his chest. He’s lost all of his feral courage to the dawn. “Noct, I’m so sorry. We just- We just wanted-”

“Wanted what?” Noct asks quietly. There are tears running down his cheeks, unheeded.

“Wanted-” He cuts himself off, biting his lip over a curse. There are words for this, and he can’t find them. “Gods, Noct, we just wanted you back. I  _ needed _ you back.”

Noct stares at him for several long moments, and the room is filled only with the sound of Prompto’s ugly weeping. Noct’s breath is hitching around something silent and visceral too; Prompto has always known how to read him. He finally says, “I needed peace, Prom. What could you possibly need me for?”

“Luna!” Prompto blurts in something like a wail.

Noct’s eyes narrow. “Luna?” he asks. 

Gods, he can see it now. The letter in his hands, Pryna nudging at his hand, and the words that Luna had given him to hold on to. Where had he gone so wrong? “She told me to...look out for you. To be ever at your side.”

“You said that in Gralea,” Noctis says slowly, sounding out the words as he mulls them over. “I remember.”

Prompto shrugs. “It’s the truth. Noct, ever since I met you, you’ve been my whole life. Yeah, I met Iggy and Gladio, but they were through  _ you _ . Everything about my adult life has been for you. I just...I don’t know how I’d go through it all without you.” He sniffs, wiping ineffectively at his nose with the back of his hand. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

The lines in Noct’s forehead deepen with the force of his sigh. He seems to slump in on himself, hunching over in the bed like he’s trying to disappear. The tear tracks on his cheeks are shining. He says, “Prompto, I understand.”

“Y-you do?” Another heave of breath almost forces another sob out of him against his will, but he chokes it back.

“I...I talked to Gentiana, a while back. And I understand. She told me…” He turns his face to the ceiling, leaving his face open and vulnerable and impossibly sad. “She told me that we need each other. That without me here, we wouldn’t be what we are.” He heaves a massive, shuddering sigh. “I guess it only just started making sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Prompto whispers again. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are.” Noctis runs a hand through his hair, pushing the dark strands away from his eyes. Prompto doesn’t miss the way he winces when he does it. “I know why you did it.”

Prompto nods, biting down hard on his lip to keep back a fresh wave of tears. His breath still catches and whistles through his lungs, though. “I’ll go,” he croaks, and he almost stands to leave, but he catches himself on his armrests and slumps down in the chair instead, hurriedly pulling at his wheels to move himself back.

“Prompto, wait.”

“No, I understand,” Prompto tells him past the knot in his throat. “You know what I did.”

“I do, but-”

“You know I’m sorry. That’s enough. I won’t bother you any more.”

“Prompto.”

“I’m going-”

“No!”

That stops Prompto in his tracks. He hasn’t heard Noctis yell in so long. He blinks away an errant tear, letting it streak down his cheek, and he meets Noct’s eyes again.

“No,” Noctis repeats, quieter this time but no less firm. “I don’t want you to go.”

Prompto is silent for a moment. Then he asks, barely trusting his voice not to tremble, “You don’t?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Even after...everything?” He doesn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for this. He doesn’t expect Noctis to.

“Look, Prompto. I’m not okay.” Noct’s eyes are fever-bright, shining with tears. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. But I don’t want to do this alone.”

“Like I said, Noct,” Prompto tells him quietly. “Ever at your side.”

And then Noct smiles, just a bit, but that’s all Prompto needed. “I know,” he says. “I know.”

“I can’t stay here right now,” Prompto admits. “I just...I need rest.”

Noctis nods. “You do.” He reaches out and taps Prompto’s arm with half-curled knuckles in a gentle approximation of a punch. “Can’t have my friend getting sloppy on King’s Knight because he didn’t sleep enough.”

Prompto laughs, breathy and high and relieved. “Right you are,” he agrees. He presses his face into the soft sheets of the hospital bed, letting his forehead rest against the solid bulk of Noct’s shoulder. Noct’s skin is soft here, and it burns with fever and magic against his face. But he’s steady and solid and alive, and that’s what Prompto needs from him.

“Thank you,” he whispers, because he’s realized now that he doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Noctis had let him leave. If being turned away had thrown Ignis into emotional turmoil, Prompto’s not sure that he would have survived it.

Noctis doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to. Prompto knows what he’d say anyway.

Later, when he’s leaving, he taps Gladio’s hand on his way out, startling him into awareness.

“What?” Gladio mumbles, still half-asleep. Ignis opens his eye lazily but doesn’t move from where he’s leaning against Gladio.

“He wants to see you,” Prompto tells him.

Gladio’s eyes, sleep-clouded but bright, rove over him for a moment, tracing the tear tracks on his face. His eyebrow twitches up. “I see.”

Prompto shrugs. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will I be?”

Prompto sighs. “You never are.”

He leaves them sitting there and emerges into the wide-open hallways of the Citadel, blinking at the sudden change to natural light.

“Prompto,” a voice calls. Prompto sighs and slows, letting his wheels drag him to a reluctant stop. He swivels to see where the voice came from, and-

“Cindy,” he breathes.

Cindy hurries up to him, brushing a lock of silver-gold hair out of her face. She’s in Lucian engineering fatigues today, decked out in a soft blue that seems so out of place in the cold hallways of the upper Citadel. “Prompto, sweetheart,” she says again, and she drops into a crouch in front of him, staring up at him. “What happened?”

Prompto feels his lip trembling again, threatening another wave of tears. He clears his throat to the best of his ability and says, “Everything.”

“Everything?” Cindy takes one of his hands in both of hers, holding onto it tightly. “The whole city’s worried sick. People are talking about the king being carried through the halls, dead. I asked Monica but she won’t tell me anything.”

“Monica’s a good person,” Prompto says absently, “and loyal.”

“...Yes.” Cindy studies him closely. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m tired, Cindy,” Prompto mutters, and he tugs his hand out of her grip. “I need to take a bath and go to bed.” Really, he does. Time of day be damned, he’s covered in blood and downright exhausted.

“Noctis,” she says suddenly.

Prompto frowns, clutching at his wheels. “What about him?”

“He’s...okay, right?”

“Yeah. He’s good. But, uh.” Prompto shrugs, rubbing at the back of his neck with one of his hands. “He’s hurting.”

Cindy breathes out a sigh of relief. “That’s good, then.”

“It is.”

“Let me take you back to your room, at least.” Cindy’s eyes are wide and earnest.

He doesn’t want to say yes. He loves Cindy, of course, but right now seeing her like this just reminds him of things he doesn’t want to think about. The engineering fatigues remind him of Astrid and her too-familiar face, and he knows that she’s going to ask him about-

“You’re not wearing the leg. Is everything okay with it?”

_ Oh, come on. _

“Yeah, Cindy. It’s fine.” Prompto gives her a half smile, because he knows that’ll appease her. “I was about to go to bed when I went to Noct’s room. And then, uh.” He shrugs. “Things happened from there.”

Cindy folds her arms across her chest, furrowing her brow. “He got hurt,” she says. “So the rumors are true.”

“To a point,” Prompto admits, and he does  _ not _ think about the sharpness of razor points, he  _ doesn’t _ -

“I won’t tell a soul,” Cindy swears. “Cross my heart.”

He believes her. Cindy has never been much of a gossip anyway, and she wouldn’t betray Prompto or her king like that. There’ll be ways to handle the news with the public; that’s Ignis’s job, anyway. Prompto’s the numbers guy, mostly.

He misses his reports.

He lets Cindy walk him back to his room anyway, because she takes his mind off the miserable things all around them. She makes him laugh a few times, even, and of course he blushes when she does it, despite the long years that he’d had to let his worship of her fizzle out into a gentle affection. He’s only human, he supposes, and Cindy is better company than most. She doesn’t even mention the leg again, and for that he’s grateful. She’s always been tactful like that.

He bids her farewell at his bedroom door, and she seems to get the message that he’s not in the mood for company. She kisses him lightly on the cheek - another blush - and goes on her way, probably heading down to the warm depths of the Citadel where affection and warmth still wait.

And he closes the door, and then he’s finally,  _ finally _ alone.

His room is brighter than he thinks it should be. It shouldn’t be daytime; it feels like time didn’t exist in the windowless infirmary waiting room, and that he’s only just returned from Noct’s bedroom after the failed attempt at King’s Knight. He wants it to be nighttime; he wants to sit in the wide open darkness of his bedroom and find comfort in the sheets of his bed. He wants to cry and not let anyone see him doing it.

But then he remembers the sickly moonlight in Noct’s bedroom, and then he’s glad that the sun is out.

He showers before taking his bath. It’s a clumsy thing he’s not tried yet, since standing in the shower isn’t exactly something he can do anymore, but he knows that if he gets into the bathwater as he is, the water is going to turn rusty red, and he can’t do that right now. He knows what it’s like to see blood trailing through bathwater, making sinful rivers through the soap and murk.

Not tonight.

Instead of attempting to prop himself up or search for a suitable chair to bring into the shower, he just settles himself in the floor of the tub and turns on the water. It sprays across his back, cold at first but quickly growing warm. He bows his head beneath the stream of water, staring down at the little trickles of red that race and spiral down the shower drain. It’s all Noct’s blood, and he shivers. 

Once he’s scrubbed the blood from his skin and turned his skin a faint pink from the effort, he plugs the drain and sits quietly, letting the water well up around him.

The bath is surprisingly relaxing. Prompto closes his eyes and rests his head against the lip of the tub, trying to enjoy the feeling of the warm water easing the aches deep in his bones. His muscles are still screaming - even more so now that he’s spent the night in his chair - but the warmth seeps into them with the same sureness that Gladio’s fingers had possessed, making him feel clean and alive. 

Once he’s in his room again, he draws the curtains against the midday sun. He has no desire to see the sun today; all he wants is sleep.

Before he goes to bed, though, he looks over across the room. There’s something he should do now, or he’ll never try it. He’ll avoid it forever. But Noct is expecting something of him, and if he’s going to be the person Noct needs, he’s going to do whatever it takes.

His leg is sitting on the shelf where he’s left it, waiting for him.

He grabs it; straps it on.

He walks again.

He’s doing this for Noct.

He hates every step.


	16. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High tempers and sparring.

Prompto was right. You’re never truly ready for something like this.

He ends up gently disentangling himself from Ignis, hoping that he’s not disturbing him too much. Ignis, of course, being ever vigilant and insufferably hyperaware, cracks his eye open when Gladio moves at last, but he doesn’t say a word and lets Gladio go on his way. Gladio’s glad for it; he knows that of the three of them, Ignis needs his sleep the most. He hopes that Ignis will doze for the time that Gladio’s talking to Noctis.

But he usually doesn’t get what he wants, so he just settles for appreciating the way that the lines on Ignis’s face smooth out when he sleeps.

The walk down the infirmary hallway seems way too long. Gladio’s made this trek half a hundred times before, nursing bruises and breaks or going to see his father or sister or Noctis himself in one of the various beds. Back then, the infirmary had been sterile but welcoming, exuding that feeling of comforting warmth that had always made Gladio feel unafraid. In that infirmary, back before everything, Gladio had never been afraid that someone wouldn’t wake up.

Now, his footsteps echo sadly around the marble floors and bare walls. Half-open doors show him glimpses of people in pain or simply wasting away. It’s not a pleasant thing to see. It’s a reminder of the Night they left behind - or thought they did. Gladio used to think that the monsters would leave with the dawn. Now, he’s not so sure.

And then there’s this. 

Noctis.

He’s not the kid that Gladio had grown up with anymore. There’s some part of that kid in there, surely, but there’s too much pain there for it to have left him unscathed. It’s in his eyes when he blinks up at Gladio, shining up at him in shades of blood and tears. It’s in the skin on his right side, charred by wild magic that Gladio couldn’t protect him from. It’s in the sword scar on his chest where his father’s sword had taken away everything they’d ever known to bring back the sun.

It’s in the bandages on his arms holding him together.

Gladio stands at the bedside and clears his throat softly.

“How are you?”

Noct sighs. “Better. Alive.”

Alive. Well, Gladio can’t argue that that’s better, but it’s still not what he wants to hear. “That’s it?”

Instead of replying, Noctis just chuckles, raspy and low.

“What’s with the laugh?”

Noct’s wry smile turns into something unreadable. “You’re just being yourself,” he says. “You’re talking as if I’m not going to break.”

Gladio raises an eyebrow. “You’d rather I did?”

“No, actually.” Noctis studies him closely. “I like not being coddled.”

"That's my job. Not to coddle you; get you stronger."

"Yeah. Worked, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?" Noct shrugs. "Suppose I have you to thank for it."

"Wasn't just me," Gladio mutters, shrugging off the question like it's water.

"Exactly."

Gladio frowns. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I know you won’t dance around the question, so I won’t try to.” Noctis lifts his arms and tilts them so that Gladio can clearly see the bandages wrapped there. “So. You know why you’re here.”

“To talk about last night? I thought we already were.”

“Well, yeah. We are. But that’s not it.” Noctis tilts his head to the side, letting strands of jet-black hair tumble across his face and cast inky shadows across the half-light in his eyes. “Leading up to last night, there was a lot that happened.”

“There was?” Gladio asks, but it’s more sarcastic than anything. Noctis seems to know this too, and he huffs out a breath, tossing his hair out of his face.

“You found your dad-”

“Did I?” Gladio asks acidly. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“And you buried him,” Noctis continues resolutely, not losing the edge in his eyes. This new Noctis is the king that spent a decade in the Crystal, the one who died and was dragged back to life and who tried to die once more. He’s not the child he was, and he’s certainly not the person Gladio once looked down on. Now he’s miserable and angry and he’s bitter and it’s all directed, right now, at Gladio.

“I buried him,” Gladio affirms. In the back of his mind, images flash of time-worn robes, a tarnished sword, and stones sliding shut over the white bones of his father.

“Do you know how I found that out?” Noctis asks. There’s a precision in his words like he’s planned them, and that no matter what Gladio says, he’s walking into a trap.

Resolutely, because he isn’t a quitter and he doesn’t back down - a sword, he’s a sword - Gladio says, “No.”

Something vicious and angry glimmers in Noct’s eyes. “Exactly. You have no idea. Ignis had to tell me about your father’s body. Your father, who was my father’s sworn Shield, trusted advisor, best friend, whatever  _ else _ he was to him - and you didn’t tell me to my face.”

“I was busy grieving.”

“So was Ignis, for his uncle, and he still came and told me,” Noctis mutters, waving away Gladio’s words with a lazy hand. “Besides, would you honestly have come and told me even if you weren’t in the middle of grieving?”

_ No, _ Gladio’s traitorous mind reminds him, and the cold chill of shame trickles down his back.

“No,” he says honestly, and he braces himself for Noct’s reaction.

Noct’s lip curls slightly. “I figured.”

“Noct, come on,” Gladio tries.

“Oh, what are you going to say? ‘Don’t be like this’?” Noctis barks out a laugh. “Rich. I can be however I damn well want to be. Don’t try to tell me how to feel. The gods tried that, and look how I turned out.” He twists his hands in his lap, exposing the stiff white bandages once more.

Gladio decides to hold his tongue on that one. He waits for Noctis to keep talking.

“Still nothing from you?” Noctis mutters.

_ Shit.  _ “What do you want me to say, then?”

"Why did you leave?"

"I've been here the whole time, Noct."

"No, you haven't." Noct's voice isn't exactly cold, but there's something stony in his tone, unwilling to move. Gladio's a sword, and swords can't cut through stone. "You visited me once in Hammerhead - if we can even call that a visit - and then you've avoided me for ages."

"I haven't."

"Stop lying. You left me."

"Noct, come on. Let me explain."

"You had your time to explain, and you didn’t use it. Now it’s my turn.” Small as he looks under the hospital sheet, he’s never looked more like a king. For once, Gladio is intimidated. “You’ve spent your time as my Shield just wandering the hallways. You talk to Prompto, you talk to Ignis, you talk to Cor. Hell, I heard you even talked to  _ Aranea- _ ”

“I was doing my job!”

“Isn’t your job with me?” Noctis breathes out in a hiss of air, seething. This is almost like one of his old tantrums, but far, far worse. Now he’s justified. Now he’s  _ right. _ “Look,” he says, biting off the words, “I’m not mad at you for grieving for your dad; you know that.” His eyes are earnest now, despite their burning.  “Gladio, you have to know that.”

“I know that,” Gladio mutters.

“But you stayed away after that. And before that. The whole time. I’ve talked to you a handful of times in  _ months, _ and even then it’s not real. You don’t  _ say _ anything. Do you know that that feels like? To be ignored by someone who you always thought was your friend? Someone who defies their calling as Shield because they hate their king?”

“I don’t hate you,” Gladio swears immediately.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Noct pauses and looks away, hissing out another fuming breath. His chest faintly heaves with the effort of his anger, and Gladio can almost swear that his burned-out veins are glowing with a faint infernal light against the ashen skin on his right side. “Look,” Noctis says finally, low and calm and furious. “You have always embraced your duty. That was all you ever talked about. That was all you ever insisted I know. You have the fucking  _ tattoo _ for it. And now-” He makes a wordless, frustrated sound, clenching the bed sheet in his mismatched fists. “And ever since I actually became the king you wanted me to be, you’ve refused to be my Shield.”

Gladio doesn’t grace him with a response. There’s something boiling in his stomach, rolling with ugly anger and guilt and shame. 

“I needed you, Gladio. All this time you’ve been here, and you refused to be who you’ve always been.”

He almost says something, but he can’t. There’s something blocking his throat that feels like anguish.

“You went through a trial for me. You succeeded. You’re the Shield I needed.”

“And I still wasn’t enough!” Gladio finally bellows.

Noctis freezes where he sits. He sits back in his pillows, suddenly small, suddenly scared. “Gladio,” he says softly.

“No, Noct!” And there’s the nickname, even now. “No, you don’t understand!”

“Help me understand,” Noctis begs. “I need to know.”

“Gods, Noct, do you realize that you  _ died? _ I let you die. That’s a failure.”

Noctis says nothing; he just sits and watches, wide-eyed.

Gladio growls out his frustration, raising his hands to tug at long strands of his hair. The sting of the pressure keeps him grounded, keeps him human, keeps him here. “And we brought you back, and you hated it. And that’s a failure. And then you-” He cuts himself off again with a furious snarl.

“And then I tried to kill myself,” Noctis finishes softly.

“You did.” Gladio sits down heavily in a chair that’s placed at the bedside and buries his face in his hands. He can feel wetness between his fingers when he does. “You did,” he says again, quieter.

Noctis lets him have his silence for a few minutes. In that time, the only sound is their quiet, heaving breaths. Then, quietly-

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Gladio tells him. “You don’t need to.”

“Yes I do.”

Gladio shakes his head, still hiding his face in his hands. “It’s all true, anyway. I stayed away. If I’d been there for you, then maybe-”

“Don’t put that on yourself,” Noctis warns him. “Don’t do that. Please.”

“I just-” Gladio cuts himself off, collects himself, tries again: “What happened?” 

“Last night?”

Gladio lifts his face from his hands and meets Noct’s bicolor gaze. “Yeah.”

“For so long, I was…” Noct pauses, searching for the right word. “Numb? Numb. Shiva visited me, you know. She made the pain less. I felt less. And then, that night…” Noct waves his hands vaguely in the air. “Well, you get the picture.”

“I saw the picture,” Gladio says. “I held the picture.”

Noct eyes him curiously. “You did,” he admits.

Gladio shrugs. He knows that Noctis can see the blood on his shirt.

“Thank you.” 

It’s a sincere thanks, not one of Noct’s old sullen attempts at civility. This is King Noctis, Gladio thinks, and he can see it in his mismatched eyes. He thinks back to the picture of his father and King Regis, and he thinks that Noctis has inherited the king’s noble elegance at last.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and they both know that he means more. That he means  _ I would do it again a million times  _ and  _ you’re everything I have to live for. _

He might be a sword, but swords fight relentlessly for their masters. Blood on the blade only makes it stronger.

“Where does this leave us?” he asks quietly.

Noctis tilts his head to the side. “Where do you want it to leave us?” he asks by way of response.

“Somewhere better, I hope. If not friendship, then just duty for now.”

“Are you my Shield?” Noctis asks, and there’s a lot in his voice. There’s that imperious noble grace once more, and a touch of fear; of worry.

_ Am I? _

“I am,” Gladio swears, and he thinks he means it.

And then there’s a real smile on Noctis’s face, fleeting but genuine and so much like the sun rising after years in the dark. “Good,” he says. “And you’ve always been my friend. Nothing will change that.”

Perhaps that’s what Gladio needed to hear all along. 

“Friends, then,” Gladio says. Then he quirks his lips up in a suggestion of one of his old smirks, because this is Noctis and it’s familiar. “My king.”

Noctis’s eyes turn warm and familiar and soft again. “Friends, then,” he echoes. “Happy to be your king again.”

“Always,” Gladio swears.

“Good.” Noctis tilts his head to the side, and a hint of mischief colors his expression. “Now, go get some rest or something. Astrals know we all need some sleep.”

“Noct, c’mon.”

“I already sent Prompto away. Please, for me. I can’t have my Shield sleeping on the job.”

Gladio frowns. “I’m fine.”

“Go,” Noctis urges, and he nods his head towards the door. “I won’t break. Promise.”

Gladio folds his arms and stares. “And go do what? In case you forgot, Your Royal Majesty, my duty is with you.”

Something like a grin passes across Noct’s face once more. “Glad you figured it out. Now let your king sleep.”

Gladio hesitates another moment, but then he bows to Noctis in a way that’s only half-mocking. Privately, he relishes the feeling of saluting his king. 

It feels like home.

And then he turns and walks out the door and down the impassive infirmary hallway. It doesn’t feel half as cold as it had when he’d come down it earlier. It just feels like a place where people heal, now. Gladio hopes that the healing extends to him as well.

Ignis is still waiting in the waiting room, eye closed but head upright. There are lines in his forehead now, evidence of his waking mind turning thoughts over and over without rest. They make him look old and sad and miserable.

“How did it go?” Ignis asks quietly as Gladio approaches, not opening his eyes. He still hasn’t put his visor back on.

“As well as you can imagine,” Gladio says noncommittally.

“That so?” Ignis muses.

Gladio snorts. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The walls of the infirmary are too close around him. Noctis was right: he needs to get out of here. Gladio stares down at Ignis, considers for a brief moment, then asks, “Train with me?"

Ignis frowns. “Are you sure this is the time?”

Gladio shrugs. “When else would be the right time?”

“Noctis-”

“Will be fine,” Gladio interrupts, “if you act like a human being for a few hours.”

Ignis opens his mouth to protest, but then he shuts it again.

“Come on,” Gladio urges, and he holds his hand out. “Let’s go practice for a bit. This kingdom isn’t protecting itself, and neither is the king.”

“And then-”

“And then you’ll go to your room, and you’ll shower, and you’ll go to bed,” Gladio tells him firmly. “No objections allowed. That’s an order.”

Ignis snorts, “What authority do you have over me?”

“Chain of command is worthless nowadays. Just take my word for it. Besides, we’re both technically Council members.”

“Is there even a Council?” Ignis muses.

“Should there be?”

“Perhaps. We should look into it. The Marshal would not be unwilling, I think-”

Gladio cuts him off. “You think too much,” he tells him, not unkindly. “Let’s get out of this place. I can’t breathe in here.”

Ignis sighs, long and soft and long-suffering, and Gladio can tell he’s only being a little bit dramatic about it. The rest of it is so authentically weary that it makes Gladio’s heart hurt. “Very well.”

“Good.” Gladio smirks, but he knows Ignis can’t see it. “I’m holding my hand out to you, by the way.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow but reaches out, gently placing his hand in Gladio’s palm. He allows Gladio to tug him to his feet and out of the infirmary, emerging into the daylight of the Citadel around them.

Once they’re in the training room, Gladio’s actually glad that they’re both in relatively casual clothes, and that they’re clothes that they’re willing to ruin. Besides, their clothes already have Noct’s blood on them, so they can’t get any worse. And Gladio can’t imagine that Ignis would say no to fighting in a full suit, even. He’d practically done that twenty years ago.

“Swords or spears or daggers?”

Gladio pauses and muses over it for a second. “Hm...I’ll take a greatsword but the rest is up to you. Spears might not be the best against the sword, blunted or no.”

“Good point. Shield for you?”

Gladio freezes in place, fingers stilling on the door to a weapon cabinet. “Uh. No.”

Ignis’s voice takes on a knowing lilt. “Very well.” He turns and reaches out his hand, frowning when he doesn’t get what he’s looking for. “The training daggers…?”

“Bit to your left,” Gladio tells him.

Ignis nods. “Ah.” His hands wander a bit further and then close over the hilts of multiple daggers. He tugs them and their holsters out of their holders and starts strapping them to his body, littering his waist and legs with weapons. 

"Out of practice?" Gladio asks. He's not teasing, not completely, but he still throws a challenge into the words. Ignis smirks, at least, so he knows the joke has landed.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve trained in here, but I assure you that I’ve not lost my touch.” And then he stalks to the center of the room, tugging out a dagger with each hand. Blunted as they are, they still look wickedly dangerous in his hands. “Shall we?”

Fighting Ignis is one of the most fun things Gladio could hope to do outside of actual battle or maybe reading a book. Each of his friends certainly have their perks in terms of sparring abilities, though. Noctis, back in his twenties, had been all about rushing Gladio and overwhelming him with a flurry of strikes interspersed with phases to get a reprieve from Gladio’s strength. With him, it was always a fun game of cat and mouse, but Gladio usually ended up winning eventually. Prompto, poor guy, just could never hold up for too long against the strikes that Gladio could land with his greatsword. He did have talent at a distance, though, and Gladio’s always appreciated the challenge of dodging bullets. 

Neither of them hold a candle to Ignis, though.

Ignis just  _ knows _ fighting. Before, back when they’d been kids, Gladio had almost laughed when he’d first heard that Ignis wanted to start Crownsguard training. The thought of this gangly kid with glasses amounting to much more than an easy target was practically hilarious to think about. He’d been younger then, of course, and far dumber than he is now. And he’d underestimated the little prince’s advisor. Gods, had he ever.

_ “Ready for week one?” Gladio asks, swinging his sword around lazily to get used to the weight of it. He rolls his neck around, trying to loosen up. He’s sixteen and cocky, sure of himself and his abilities. His father had complimented his form yesterday and, well, he’s riding that high.  _

_ Meanwhile, Ignis Scientia, fifteen and skinny, stands motionlessly in front of him, watching him closely. He tosses his head lightly, flicking a strand of honey-brown hair off of his forehead. Gladio almost snorts. This kid is going to have to get used to getting sweaty and a little messed up during training. They’ve talked before - interactions on the job and all - but this is his first time really in one-on-one time with Ignis. He’s curious about what he’s capable of. _

_ “I stopped by the training rooms after work last week. Noctis suggested that I, and I quote, ‘get my shit together’ before I try working with you.” The profanity, mild as it is, sounds weird coming from the mouth of this uptight kid with a proper accent. _

_ Gladio grins. “He did, did he?” _

_ “He did.” Ignis studies him closely. It looks like he’s sizing Gladio up as well. “Gladiolus, I don’t claim to know much about fighting.” _

_ “You seem to know a lot about words,” Gladio tells him. “You talk like you’re one of the old folks on the Council.” _

_ Ignis raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t your father on the Council?” _

_ Gladio shrugs. “Semantics.” _

_ “Big word. So the fearsome Shield does know more than just how to fight.” Ignis crosses his arms, looking like he thinks he’s won. _

_ “I know plenty,” Gladio retorts. “For example, I know that you’ll maybe last ten seconds in a fight with me.” _

_ “Well, let’s try,” Ignis replies, and he stalks over to the weapons rack. Gladio watches, quietly amused, as Ignis hesitates in front of the rows of weapons. Clearly, he has little idea of what he should be doing, but Gladio can tell that Ignis would rather die than admit he needs help. It reminds Gladio of himself, a bit. _

_ Ignis ends up plucking a blunted longsword from the rack, twirling it experimentally in his hand. His grip is all wrong, and the blade is a little long for him, gangly as he is, but it’ll do for the basics. _

_ “Swords?” Gladio asks, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re ready for that sort of work?” _

_ Ignis blushes furiously. It’s an odd sight to see on the kid, for sure. “We won’t know until we try,” he insists, still maintaining his air of aloofness despite how red his face is. _

_ So they try. _

_ He’s shit with a sword. Well. Not shit, really, but it’s just not his strength, and he’s certainly not better than Gladio. He doesn’t seem to like being limited by the way that the sword’s momentum moves him. It’s immediately obvious that he wants something a little more precise than just swinging a blade around and hoping for the best. Gladio doesn’t even bother trying to work with him on greatswords. If he hates using regular swords, he’ll despise the massive, sweeping slowness of one of Gladio’s blades.  _

_ “How’s your aim?” he asks on their third week, after he’s beaten Ignis into submission with a combination of sword strikes and leg exercises. _

_ Ignis shakes his hair out of his face, glaring up at Gladio. “Do you expect me to throw swords as well?” he pants out. _

_ “Maybe it’ll help you avoid getting hit,” Gladio retorts with a grin. Ignis glares daggers at him. “But no. Not swords. You don’t like them, and they don’t like you.” _

_ “I’m perfectly fine with a sword,” Ignis sniffs, and there’s that prim tone to his voice again. _

_ Gladio chuckles a bit, shaking his head. “You don’t like to be bad at things, do you?” _

_ Ignis just frowns, still catching his breath. _

_ Gladio rolls his eyes. “Besides,” he continues, “you don’t want to be just fine. You want to be good. You want to be the best.” He nudges Ignis with one of his feet. “Right?” _

_ “...Right.” _

_ Putting a knife in Ignis’s hand is possibly both the best and worst decision Gladio has ever made. _

_ It’s good that he’s got a skillset, but now he has the ability to really kick Gladio’s ass. _

_ The kid has skill, and it makes itself evident once he’s in his element. He seems not to mind having to compensate for his lack of range and defense, and Gladio suggests he start going to a specific trainer for athletic and agility training. Over the months and years, Ignis Scientia becomes actually dangerous. Nobody his age, or anywhere close to it, can handle a dagger like he can.  _

_ One day, they try out spears, and that just makes it better. There’s layers to this kid, and there’s a grit to him that Gladio’s surprised to see underneath that perfectly polished exterior. It’s there in the way he smiles when he manages to pin Gladio down, or in the brutal efficiency with which he passes his Crownsguard examinations. _

_ Gladio’s just proud that he was the one to teach him. _

Ignis is always the best to spar with. Gladio’s not sure exactly what it is about him: his speed, his precision, his brutality, or maybe all of them at once. Ignis fights in a way that makes Gladio think and strategize past just the next hit.

Now that he’s adapted to his blindness, he’s got a new kind of talent. His arms have become far stronger and infinitely steadier to compensate for the need for perfect aim. It had seemed counterproductive to Gladio at first to have Ignis adopt the practice of throwing his weapons. Now, he can’t imagine Ignis’s fighting style without it. 

The lack of the armiger means that Ignis is at a disadvantage now; he’s unable to recall his daggers after he’s thrown them, and the only way of getting them back is by manually going around and retrieving them. The good thing is that it slows down the rate of Ignis’s assaults. The bad thing is that now Ignis chooses his shots very, very well.

And, okay, they’re just training weapons, blunted well enough, but metal still  _ hurts _ when it hurtles towards his body from Ignis’s expert hand.

“I wish we could use real daggers,” Ignis sighs, ducking out of the way of one of Gladio’s swings. His hair ruffles in the wind as it goes past. “The blunting destroys their balance.”

“Hate to break it to you, but real daggers would kill me.”

“A pity.”

Just to spite him - or at least Gladio suspects, because Ignis  _ would _ do something like that - Ignis parries his blow with both of his daggers, using the force of Gladio’s sword to send himself spiralling into a flip. He lands it perfectly, of course, and dances out of the way of Gladio’s follow-through.

“Did you become more of a showoff since I last fought with you?” Gladio growls, bending out of the way to avoid an arcing slash. 

“No,” Ignis muses breathlessly, and he lunges to try to get a shot at Gladio’s stomach. He doesn’t get past Gladio’s arms, though, and he lets Gladio push him away. He stumbles back into position and starts to circle Gladio once more, head tilted to the side to pinpoint Gladio’s movements. “Certainly more finessed, I think.”

“Ever the humble one.”

“Do you expect anything less?”

“From you?” Gladio snorts. “Never.”

He lunges out with the sword, aiming for Ignis’s hip. He almost falters and relies on a shield he isn’t wearing, but he catches himself mid-movement and turns the lunge into a dodge, ducking out of the way of Ignis, who’s sensed his momentary lapse in concentration.

“Hey, Iggy,” Gladio says absently, tossing his head to get his hair out of his face. “Can you still do that spin kick move?”

Ignis grins, and there’s that spiteful, savage beauty of his that only comes out when he’s on the battlefield. “Can I,” he drawls. And he drops into a somersault, rolling past Gladio before he can blink. His movement carries him to where a dagger had dropped earlier, probably pinpointed by the metallic ring of his fall. Ignis scoops up the dagger and gets to his feet in half a heartbeat, and the fluid motion continues as he tosses the dagger to the ceiling once more in an arc of glinting steel. He takes a few steps and then leaps, twisting in the air and striking the blade midair with his foot. 

The dagger spins through the air with whistling accuracy, and Gladio grunts when it catches him in the chest and clatters to the ground. That’ll bruise later.

“You should’ve dodged,” Ignis tells him in that voice he uses when he’s gloating. “Your chest is such an easy target. So broad.”

“Waste of a dagger,” Gladio points out, and he whacks at Ignis with the flat of his blade. 

Ignis winces and leaps out of the way.

“Besides,” Gladio continues, “I didn’t want you to feel bad about yourself if you’d missed.”

“I wouldn’t have missed.”

“Thought you said the daggers were off balance.”

“The daggers are, certainly. I never said I was.”

“So you haven’t lost your touch.”

Ignis snorts. “I’m thirty two, Gladio. Hardly an age at which one loses their touch. Look at the Marshal, for crying out loud.”

“The Marshal is called the Immortal for a reason, Iggy.” Of course, he knows it’s not true, and that Cor hates the nickname, but that’s a secret for him to keep.

That brings a fleeting grin to Ignis’s face, who spins and feints with one of his blades. As he dances back out of the way when Gladio calls his bluff, his movements have an easy fluidity to them that Gladio rarely sees in fighters. The tension just bleeds out of him. 

“I haven’t seen you this relaxed in ages.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow and steps lightly out of the way of Gladio when he tries to elbow Ignis out of the way. “You know how it is,” he muses, countering with a strike of his own. It lands, digging his bony elbow in between Gladio’s ribs. “Fighting requires focus of a different sort.”

“No time to think,” Gladio agrees.

“Precisely.”

They have a few more brief exchanges of blows, but they end up just circling each other, winding down and breathing audibly into their shared space. It’s so akin to their verbal fighting of the previous night in their positioning, breathing each other’s air, but there’s something calmer underlying it all this time. Here, they’re working in sync, not against each other. 

Gladio hadn’t realized how much he’s missed being Ignis’s friend.

"I fought a few sabertooths out in Insomnia just a day past," Ignis says into their contemplative silence, and his words follow the easy cadence of their breathing.

"On your own?"

Ignis scoffs, flipping a dagger in his hand. "Certainly not. I was with Dustin. Prompto was there too."

"Fighting?"

"Unfortunately not. He didn't even have his pistols."

Gladio rests his sword on his shoulder. "We should change that."

"We shouldn't rush him, Gladio." Ignis seems to sense the change in Gladio’s stance, because he slips into an at-ease pose as well, tucking his daggers away in his holsters on his hip and leg. “He’s...resistant.”

“He’s getting complacent, is what he is,” Gladio grumbles. “You keep him cooped up in that office all day.”

“He enjoys the numbers, Gladio.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You expect too much.”

“And you expect too little. Seems to be a habit of yours.”

Ignis frowns. “Oh?” he asks lightly, but he’s visibly ruffled; his nose twitches in that way it does when he gets angry.

“Don’t act like you don’t remember back when Noct was a teen. You didn’t give him enough credit. Don’t do that to Prompto too.”

He almost expects a spiteful glare and prickly response, but instead Ignis just deflates. He bows his head with a sigh and says, “I know, Gladio. I know.”

Gladio frowns and readjusts his grip on his sword. “Did Noct take the fight out of you or something when he talked to you?”

“Noct?” Ignis barks out a laugh, almost bitter. “No, it wasn’t him, not entirely. Just...I’ve learned, recently, what it means to be ashamed.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that.”  
Ignis smiles, small and sad. “Ah. Well. It seems that Noctis has that sort of effect.”  
“I can tell.” Gladio knows. He doesn’t know the way Ignis does, but he knows.

“You could use an attitude adjustment yourself,” Ignis tells him, and he gracefully settles himself cross-legged on the floor, folding up his lanky legs with infinite grace. He takes a cloth out of his pocket and starts wiping down his training daggers, focusing his blind gaze down at the blade. 

“That what you think?”

“It is.” Ignis rubs at a particularly stubborn scuff on the steel. “I figured that Noctis put you in your place, to some degree.”

“Oh, do you?”

Ignis sighs. “Don’t be confrontational, Gladio. We can all admit that we were at fault in our own ways for what’s happened ever since Noctis died.” It’s surprising to hear Ignis of all people say it so frankly.

Gladio studies him for a moment and then groans softly. “You’re too good at diplomacy,” he tells Ignis, turning away to put the practice sword away in the cabinet.

“I should certainly hope so.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to.” Ignis frowns over at him. “If you’re not going to talk about it, you might as well go get some sleep.”

“We’re not done here,” Gladio protests.

“Go.” Ignis jerks his head towards the door. “I’ll go to my room once I’m done with this. But you need to practice what you preach. Get some rest. You’ve been awake for just as long as the rest of us.”

“Ignis.”

“No.” Ignis holds up a dagger and spins it between his fingers. “Don’t make me throw this.”

Gladio sighs, but he’s not angry or frustrated. If anything, he’s charmed, and a little thankful. “Fine. You win.” He shuts the weapons cabinet. “But only if you promise that you really will get some sleep after this.”

“On my honor as a servant to the crown, Gladio. Yes.”

“Fine.” Gladio rolls his shoulders, relishing the crack when he moves his neck. He heads over to Ignis and lightly places a hand on his shoulder. Ignis pauses in his work but says nothing, even though his shoulder presses a little harder into the warmth of Gladio’s palm.

“Until tomorrow, Gladiolus,” Ignis says softly. “Get some sleep.”

“You too, Ignis.”

And then he leaves, walking through the Citadel hallways in bloodied clothing, ignoring anyone who spares him a second glance. They all know who he is. They all know what he’s done for their king, and everything he hasn’t done too.

One day, he hopes they’ll look at him with something other than disappointment.

Back in his room, he shuts the door slowly, letting the his eyes adjust as he steps out of the light of the hallway. It’s mid-evening now, and the sun casts deep red and orange streaks across his bedroom floor.

Now that he’s back here in this place that feels safe, Gladio finally realizes how incredibly tired he is. He can feel his soreness down to his bones. His clothes are a mess, covered in blood and sweat, and everything hurts in ways he’d never understood before. Worst of all, the pang of ancient guilt sits heavily in the center of his chest, threatening to rise up and choke him. All he wants is to curl up and ignore the world and hope that something good will happen.

Before he goes to bed, though, he pauses at his wardrobe. There’s something that he’d almost call magic tugging at him, calling to the part of him that has felt empty ever since the death of his king and the disappearance of magic. And he knows it’s not magic, because magic is gone, but he imagines that it works in much the same way that Noct’s ancestors called to him. And he tugs open the wardrobe and stares down at the treasures he’s stored there in a greedy, guilty hoard.

He almost reaches for the shield. 

But then he thinks of the broken look in Noct’s eyes, and the feeling of his king in his arms, and the shame that came with being confronted by his failure to be the person he was raised to be.

He can’t, not yet. 

Someday, though.

Soon.


	17. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Realization and rehabilitation.

The weather’s getting colder now.

There hadn’t been much in the way of seasons during the Night. Having the sun gone and the world stifled by clouds of black had discouraged the development of the more extreme seasons. A few times in the first year or two, there had been a smattering of snowfall over parts of Duscae and Cleigne, but the snow had been black and foul and had infected the few unlucky children who’d tried to catch the flakes on their tongues.

The cases had been tragic, and they’d avoided the snow after that, but a year later the snows no longer fell and the world settled into a condition of endless neutrality, stifled by the black clouds up above.

Now, though, a chill is settling over Insomnia that they haven’t felt in years. People are dressed in mismatched clothes taken from stores and abandoned homes, doing what they have to to survive. There’s no snow yet, but Prompto’s seen morning frost outside of his window on a few particularly chilly mornings.

The cold makes Prompto shiver, and his joints are weakened enough by the departure of the Scourge that the weather gives him aching pains in the mornings. Nothing can quite describe the unique pain of aching joints and phantom leg pain combining to create something entirely unpleasant. But even though he can’t describe it, he sure can feel it. He really,  _ really _ feels it.

But he’s glad that there’s some modicum of change around Insomnia, disrupting the normal routines of the workers in the Citadel. People are wearing different clothes for once, and now their smiles when they greet him are tinged red by the cold air on their cheeks. It makes Prompto feel like he blends in a bit more now, with his red veins blending into the red flush of skin fighting the cold.

Things are changing for sure.

Noctis is better. Or as good as he can be, it seems. Ignis doesn’t leave his side much, but he’s not hovering. If anything, it’s Noctis who’s keeping him close, clinging to him like a lifeline. And Prompto understands, he really does. He doesn’t need Prompto’s bubbly distractions and photographs right now. Ignis’s stoic, solid comfort is the constant that Noctis needs, and Prompto is more than happy to do whatever he can if it means that Noctis will get back on his road to recovery.

And the recovery has been rough. More often than not, Prompto will roll into the throne room and find Noctis curled up in his favorite high corner of the throne room, steadily crushing rocks into rubble. Noctis is silent, and he usually doesn’t acknowledge Prompto. His red eye glows on those days, warning of wild magic that even his death couldn’t take from him.

On those days, Prompto fears him.

On other days, Noctis will come into Prompto’s office and frown down at Prompto’s papers, but he doesn’t sit on the desk as often. He curls up in the window seat, and his eye still gleams in the sunlight like it had before he’d tried to end his own life, but he has a palpable presence now. With his emotions, his personality has returned with force, and the new, older Noct is jaded and powerful even without his magic. He’ll make little comments as Prompto adds up numbers, occasionally throwing in snide little jokes about figures as Prompto absently comments on them aloud. Sometimes his words veer into dangerous territory, carrying a  spiteful edge that makes Prompto’s hair stand on end, but usually Noctis just makes Prompto smile.

Prompto likes those days, most of the time.

And there are other days. Like the days when Noctis will break down crying in the middle of a King’s Knight raid. Or the days when Ignis will call Prompto in the middle of the night, frantically asking if he’s seen Noctis. Or the days when Noctis joins him out on a windblown balcony and the two of them sit together in silence for hours.

The days go by, and it feels like someone is spinning a wheel, callously choosing whether Noctis will regret being alive or not.

But he still invites Prompto over for King’s Knight sometimes. And that’s enough for him. 

And Prompto? He’s fine.

He’s fine.

The reports keep pouring in from Lucis and beyond - do they even have borders now? Prompto’s not sure that’s his department - to update the coalition in the Citadel on population counts and rations. With the winter coming just months on the heels of the dawn, everyone has been caught off guard. Thankfully, though, some crops were able to grow on the soil that had gone rich from ten years of disuse. Besides, none of them are strangers to rationing anymore. Prompto crunches the numbers on the reports and tries his best to format them into a medium that Ignis will be able to process. Ignis makes all of the real decisions anyway, not including Noctis.

His camera has gotten a few more uses here and there. He’s managed to scare up some film that wasn’t ruined by the ravages of time and war, so now he’s been tracking the progress of the reconstruction from the windows of the Citadel. There’s plenty to see inside and outside of the center of Lucis for sure. There are pictures on his camera of engineers hard at work, citizens out and about, and the weekly marketplace that the common folk hold on the plaza outside of the Citadel. But he hasn’t exactly gone outside that much since his exploration of the city with Ignis. He just hasn’t been ready, or willing, or he just hasn’t cared. Besides, he’d need to wear the leg to get around most places.

He’s been trying. Really, he has. But lately, the old ugly shadows of his past have been growing, casting something miserable over him. The leg just makes him feel sick nowadays. Not physically, though - the leg fits perfectly. And that’s what Prompto hates about it.

It makes sense, he supposes, to be built for machinery.

Now that he thinks about it, maybe everything about him is centered around that. Hasn’t he always been a technophile? Hasn’t he always loved tinkering with scrap metal and helping Cindy out with various tasks in the shop? Hasn’t he always been happiest with a camera in his hand?

Even when he hadn’t known, he’d followed his destined path. It’s funny, then, that he’s fulfilling it even after the Scourge has been ripped from his veins by Noct’s light.

Tonight, it’s all he can think about.

It’s the middle of the evening, and Prompto’s sitting at dinner with Ignis, Noctis, and Gladio. It’s something that they’ve started doing lately, because now there’s some sort of agreement between them, unspoken or not. These dinners don’t have the same easy quietness of their old campfires: instead of comfortable silences, their meals are filled with conversation more often than not, as if they’re trying to compensate for something they don’t understand yet. They’ve made steps, sure, but there’s still something missing; still something broken.

It doesn’t help that each of them is still harboring their own private pains and refusing to let the others come to their aid.

Usually the conversations are harmless enough, though. Today, unfortunately, is the exact worst time for Prompto’s insecurities and dinner topics to intersect.

“Care to join me down at the training rooms tomorrow?” Ignis asks lightly, spearing a piece of meat with his fork. “Monica said she’d be training some new recruits with ranged weapons. I thought you’d enjoy the prospect.”

“I didn’t know that we had new recruits,” Prompto says instead of answering. Hopefully he can get Ignis to go on a long enough tangent that he forgets the question.

Noctis tilts his head to the side. “Neither did I. Where’d they come from?” Furtively, he plucks a piece of broccoli from his plate and places it gently on the edge of Ignis’s dish. Ignis frowns and his eyebrow quirks up, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

Instead, he sighs, chews for a moment, then replies, “Many of our younger citizens learned at least the basics of fighting during the Night; they want to serve the king now. Cor has insisted that we put an age cap of fifteen on all trainees.”

“Seems kinda hypocritical,” Gladio mutters, picking at a piece of meat absently. “I mean, he was thirteen when he joined up in the Crownsguard.”

“The Marshal was a prodigy, as we all know. Besides, Cor and Monica are allowing anyone to try out if they so wish it, but no participants younger than fifteen have been accepted into the program thus far.”

“Is it even still called the Crownsguard?”

“For lack of a better term, yes. The hunters have chosen to donate some of their own to the effort, since now so many people are streaming into the Crown City. Now, in the absence of daemons, we have fewer woes for the hunters to manage, and it’ll be a while until there are enough animals to become a systemic problem. If anything, our greatest concern is going to be crime.”

“What about the Kingsglaive?” Noctis asks, setting his chin in the palm of one of his hands. 

Ignis spares another eyebrow raise at Noct, seemingly sensing that Noctis has his elbow up on the table. “The Kingsglaive,” he answers slowly, “is a special case. Most of the Glaives perished out in the war, or in the Crown City during the Fall. There were a few survivors, and even fewer made it through the Night. And there’s us, obviously.”

“I know about one of them,” Prompto says suddenly.

“Oh?” Ignis asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Prompto nods. “Yeah. Saw her in Hammerhead. The day Noct woke up, actually.”

Noctis makes a peculiar face that Prompto can’t quite place - it’s as if he’s swallowed a bean without realizing it. “That’s nice,” he says, sounding a little strangled.

Ignis shifts in his seat; Prompto doesn’t miss the way that his elbow arcs out and brushes against Noct’s arm, or the way that Noct’s strained posture loosens when he does it. “It is,” Ignis agrees. “Did you get her name?”

“No. Just that she was on leave during the Fall, so she missed out on - well. Everything.” He shrugs, then frowns. “Hey, does that mean that we’re Kingsglaive  _ and  _ Crownsguard?”

“The meaning has shifted over the years, given the circumstances.” Ignis gestures vaguely with one of his hands, and his fingers reach as if they’re trying to grab the words from the air. He sighs and turns his gaze towards Gladio. “Gladio, some help?”

“Oh.” Gladio sits back in his seat. “So we’re a special case, I guess. We’re formally Crownsguard, obviously. That’s how we started out. But when the king - King Regis, I mean - when he died, the old Kingsglaive lost their power. The thing is, that means that Noct became king, and since we had his powers, we became the Kingsglaive.” He shrugs. “Listen, it makes sense.”

“But,” Noctis says, “you don’t have the magic anymore. None of us do.”

All three of them wince a bit when he says that. As it turns out, that’s a sore spot for all of them. They all know it; they can all feel that spot in their chests where they used to be tethered to each other and to the magic of the Crystal. To Noct.

Ignis is the one to tackle that particular topic. “Well,” he says softly, “I thought that now the title holds a certain sort of meaning. There won’t be any new Kingsglaive. Just us. Just the ones who knew the magic of the kings.” The way he says it sounds possessive and jealous and secret.

Prompto knows the feeling. He’s lain in bed too many nights, trying and failing to shove his pistols into the armiger and forget about them. Some days, even with Noct sitting beside him, he feels like he’s not there. Without the magic between them, Noct has never felt more distant.

“Fair enough,” Gladio mutters into their silence. When the rest of them turn to look at him, he twirls his fork around in his fingers, staring down at it. “What? It makes sense.”

“I like it,” Noctis declares, and they all breathe something like a sigh. Okay. So that’s another thing acknowledged between them now.

“So in conclusion,” Ignis says, giving a look to Noctis that says something stronger than  _ thank you, _ “Monica is training the new Crownsguard, and the Kingsglaive will not grow any larger.”

“I like it,” Noctis repeats.

“You haven’t answered my question yet, Prompto.” Ignis fixes him with another disconcertingly accurate stare. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

_ Damn. _

“Why don’t you go, Prom?” Noct’s eyes are bright and earnest, almost puppy-like with his eagerness to have Prompto do something.

Prompto shrugs. “I’ve got work to do.”

Ignis makes a quiet noise in his throat that betrays his frustration even though his face remains carefully neutral. “You know,” he says softly, in a level voice he’s usually only ever used when he’s frustrated in meetings with Lestallum representatives or Noctis back when he was a stubborn kid, “I have work as well, but we can all take time to devote ourselves to other activities.”

“Well, if you’re not working, someone has to,” Prompto points out. He knows he’s caught Ignis; he’d smirk if he had the energy.

Gladio snorts beside Prompto; when Prompto shoots a furtive glance his way, he’s trying to muffle an amused smirk in a spoonful of soup. “Uh,” Gladio says, “he’s got a point.”

Ignis shoots a withering glare in Gladio’s direction. Somehow, it’s not diminished by the fact that he can neither see Gladio nor that he only has one eye. Must just be the Ignis touch, then. The fact that he rarely wears his visor around them anymore is certainly a contributing factor. “Thank you for your contribution, Gladiolus,” he says tightly in a voice that is saying the exact opposite of  _ thank you. _

Gladio shrugs and returns to his soup.

“Come on, Prompto,” Ignis continues. “It’s been months. Surely you’d like to pick up the pistols again?”

Gods. Now that Prompto thinks about it, guns are machines too. Has his destiny been chasing him even in his choice of weapon?

“I’ll pass, Iggy,” he says, hoping that the nickname will placate him.

It doesn’t.

Ignis leans forward and places his elbows on the table so that he can steeple his fingers together. Noctis and Gladio share an incredibly scandalized look from across the table. Ignis says, very seriously, “Prompto, I understand your reservations about fighting again.”

“Do you?” Prompto snaps.

Ignis blinks but carries on. “I do, or at least I do understand to the extent that you’ve let me. In my experience, I’ve found that I felt all the better after conquering my fears of failure and inadequacy. And of those, there were many.”

Prompto retorts, “Who are you to say what I should do?” It’s not logical and he’s not thinking, but he feels cornered because  _ of course _ Ignis would talk to him about this at dinner when he can’t leave.

“Are you forgetting that I went blind?” Ignis asks quietly. It’s not accusing, and his words don’t carry the threat of an argument. It’s just a reminder, soft and calm and sad.

Prompto bows his head. “No,” he mutters.

“Then you understand that I speak from my own experience, and that I only have your wellbeing in mind.”

“I do.”

Ignis sighs and picks up his fork and knife again. “Just consider it, Prompto. You haven’t been yourself ever since the dawn.”

Prompto snorts derisively. “Have any of us been?”

“Hey,” Noctis tries, “I know. Trust me, I do. But I also know that you’ve always been happiest with a gun in your hands.”

“Well,” Prompto mutters, “that was before.”

Ignis asks, “Before what?”

Prompto almost laughs out loud - he barks out a sound that’s all different shades of bitter. “Before what? Try the dawn, or the Night. Hell, try  _ Gralea. _ ” If he had never learned the truth, if he’d never been captured, if Noctis had never pushed him off the train-

No. It’s not Noct’s fault.

Prompto pushes back from the table. “I’m done here. Thanks for dinner.”

“Prompto,” Noctis tries, and he half-stands from the table. 

Prompto spares a glance back at him but he doesn’t stop rolling. Noctis is watching him, bracing his hands on the table. His mismatched eyes are disconcertingly sad-looking, even from this distance. Prompto frowns and averts his gaze. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Noct,” he says, and he makes his way out of the dining room.

Noctis lets him go.

“Prompto,” Ignis calls half-heartedly when Prompto’s in the doorway, and Gladio makes a soft sound of concern.

Prompto ignores them. He just needs some peace and quiet.

He emerges into the darkening hallways of the Citadel, relishing the sound of the dining room door slamming shut behind him. He grips his wheels with perhaps a bit more force than what’s needed and pushes himself down the hallway, trying to ignore the fervent buzzing in his head. Everything in his mind is just too loud.

It’s frustrating to roll along the marble floors of the Citadel. His wheels can’t get the traction he needs, and it makes movement nearly impossible. He curses at a corner he takes too fast that threatens to send him into skids. A passing worker overhears him and balks, stepping hastily out of his way. Prompto doesn’t miss the way she lowers her gaze to avoid meeting his eyes.

Look at him, scaring people off.

It would be easier if he could just walk. It would save everyone the trouble of trying to be respectful. The people who pointedly don’t look at the chair are just as bad as the people who can only ever focus on the fact that he can’t walk.

But he can’t wear the leg.

Gods, why does nobody understand why he  _ can’t? _

He doesn’t make it far before a voice jerks him from the maelstrom in his mind.

“You look tired.”

Prompto scowls and turns, ready to snap at whoever it is that’s decided to talk to him, but-

Oh. 

It’s Cor.

He hasn’t truly seen the Marshal in nearly a year. Even now, after the return of the sun, he’s always been wherever Prompto isn’t, which is pretty easy to do since Prompto is limited in where exactly he can go. Cor’s face has gained more lines which make him look even more weary and severe, and his frown seems to convey even more pain than before. But his eyes, even at this distance, are softer than Prompto’s ever seen them.

“Hello, Cor,” he greets sullenly. He slumps into his chair and waits for Cor to say something. Duty, honor, protecting the king, or something equally frustrating. 

Cor tilts his head, studying him for a moment. “You’re not wearing the leg today.”

Oh. Not the something he’d been hoping for. He’s not sure what he really expected, actually. Prompto crosses his arms. “No, I’m not. What of it?”

“You sound like a teenager, Prompto.”

“And  _ you _ sound like my mother.” He doesn’t, actually. Prompto’s mother had never really had time to guilt him into answering questions. No time for much of anything, really.

“Now you’re just being difficult.”

Prompto scowls up at Cor. “I didn’t ask you to come talk to me.” He pauses, then adds, “Sir.”

Cor’s pale eyes flicker across his face, studying something that Prompto can’t fathom. On instinct, he schools his expression into careful neutrality, hoping that it conveys just the right amount of calmness and unwillingness to talk. He’s pretty good at putting on masks. 

“Forgive me for thinking that we were on speaking terms, then.” Cor’s gaze is unrelenting. “Next time I’ll wait for an invitation.”

Prompto slouches further into his seat. “How are you always so good at making people feel guilty?” he mutters.

“Consider it a talent.”

“I won’t.”

“Very well,” Cor says easily. “What’s bothering you so much, Prompto?”

“Enough.”

“Is it the leg?”

“Is it that obvious?”

Cor blinks down at him. “I tend to notice that people are sensitive about topics when they lash out if that topic is mentioned. I mentioned. You lashed.”

“But you talk about it anyway?” Prompto sneers.

Cor sighs. “My training taught me to address problems head on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate well to interpersonal interactions. Regis never liked it either.”

“Regis.” Prompto tests out the name quietly. The king’s first name feels foreign on his tongue, like it’s a privilege he hasn’t earned. “He had problems too?”

“Didn’t everybody?” Cor’s gaze shifts and focuses on something past Prompto. “Regis was troubled by a lot, especially in the later years. The prophecy and what it meant for him and for Noctis. His body failing him. It weighed on him.”

It’s odd to think of the old king as anything less than a legend. “And what did you tell him then?”

“The same thing I’ll tell you, I suppose. I know how hard it is to be stopped in your tracks. I’m not saying that our experiences are the same, but after I underwent the Trial of Gilgamesh, both my pride and body were wounded. Gilgamesh barely let me escape with my life. I knew that I’d have to reinvent myself and heal in a way that took into account who I had been and what Gilgamesh made me.” Cor shrugs - it’s a casual gesture that seems so out of place on a man like him. “So I did. And I healed.”

“Of course  _ you _ did. You’re the Immortal.”

Cor winces. “That name again, huh?” he asks.

“You keep living up to it.” Prompto shrugs. “Why not keep using it if it works so well?”

“Because it’s-” Cor cuts himself off, pausing for a moment to run a hand through his short-shorn hair. “It’s not me. It’s not a good name.”

“I think it’s a pretty cool name.”

“That may be so, but it’s not the name for me.”

“Doubt it.”

“I told Gladio and now I’ll tell you: I’m just a man, Prompto.” Cor looks so old in this moment, so weary, so...mortal. “That name is a reminder of my shame and my recklessness. I’m not that legend that they think I am. I’m just a man.”

“What does that make me?” Prompto asks.

Cor frowns. “What do you mean?”

Prompto bites at his lip, running it between his teeth for a few moments. “If  _ you’re  _ just a man, what could I possibly be?”

“Prompto.”

“I know you’ve been to the research facilities, Cor,” Prompto blurts before he can stop himself. He can’t look at him. He can’t. He can’t. “I’ve heard you reporting to the council in Lestallum. I know you’ve seen what I saw. What I am.” He laughs, high and bitter. “Imperial technology.” Ha. It’s funny, really, when he thinks about it, and another wild giggle tears itself from him, inescapable and desperate. “A Nif monster with a Nif leg.”

“Prompto.”

“It’s hilarious!” he laughs. His shoulders are shaking; he’s laughing so hard that he’s crying. Or. Or is he - “A product upgrade! And-and-and-”

“Prompto.”

Cor’s hand lands on his shoulder with overwhelming strength. It makes the hall smell suddenly of ozone, and although the hair on the back of Prompto’s neck stands on end, he feels his shuddering hands slow to a stop. He just feels drained and silent and miserable, and there are tear tracks on his cheeks. Prompto lets out a stuttering breath, and his laughs die with it, given back to the cold air of the Citadel.

“Prompto,” Cor says. “Prompto, you’re a Lucian. You always have been. The way you were born or where - that doesn’t matter. You were a Lucian before you knew and you still are. No amount of technology, made by former Niflheim scientists or not, can change that.”

“But I-”

“No.” Cor’s pale eyes hold a certain fierceness. “Prompto, you may not see it now, and I understand. But I know who you are. You’re the king’s friend, and a loyal Lucian. The fact that you fear not being a Lucian speaks to how much you  _ are _ one. You joined the prince’s Crownsguard without much formal experience or training because you were dedicated and you cared. That’s the mark of a Lucian if I’ve ever seen one.”

Prompto flinches away from Cor’s hand. “Stop trying. I don’t want to hear it.”

“It sounds like you need to, for your own good.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just leave me alone.”

Cor opens his mouth as if he’s about to try to say something else, but he closes it slowly, and his open features settle into a frown. He doesn’t look disappointed or angry, though. He just looks sad. “Very well,” he says, and he straightens to his full height, tugging at the hem of his suit jacket to straighten it. 

Prompto avoids his gaze; it feels too intense, like Cor can see what’s wrong with him. “Just leave me alone. Please.”

“Just know, Prompto, that I’m...that I’m here.” And then Cor’s feet move out of Prompto’s way, striding off back down the hallway the way Prompto had come.

Prompto lets him go.

“Besides,” Cor says from down the corridor. Prompto cranes his neck to see him, silhouetted like a shadow in the distance. “Who do you think King Regis sent to infiltrate the magitek facility?”

Prompto lets his mouth fall open.

Somehow, this just makes it worse.

And then Cor’s gone, swallowed up by the shadows of the Citadel.

Prompto sits in the center of the darkening hallway for what feels like hours or an eternity.

His hands are shaking when they return to his wheels. He clutches them even more tightly than before, knowing that the skin on his knuckles will go white with the effort. It’ll only make his veins stand out in starker contrast.

He needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of this hallway and into somewhere where he can think.

He shuts himself in his room and huddles in his chair, staring silently into the growing dimness of the bedroom. His nerves feel like they’re buzzing, and there’s something trembling in his chest that feels like the beginning of tears or another panic attack. This is too much; everything today was too much. It’s all coming down on his head and he can’t take it. Why now? Why today?

He needs a drink.

Maybe he needs a lot of drinks.

Well. It’s something he’s certainly never thought of, but. It’s worth a try, right?

Of course he’s had alcohol before: when they were kids, he and Noct had sat around in hidden corners of the Citadel and out back at Prompto’s house to drink beers they’d snatched from Gladio’s stashes. Noctis had always hated the watery, bitter taste of the beer, and Prompto has plenty of photos somewhere of the disgusted faces Noct had pulled. Prompto had argued that barley wasn’t even a vegetable, but Noctis had insisted that he was allowed to hate more than just one food group. 

Still, the memories of those nights are too sweet to tarnish with his pain, so Prompto chooses to avoid beer for tonight. Gladio had always chosen harder liquor like wine or whiskey, so that’s where Prompto leans for his purposes. Gladio is, after all, the master of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and Prompto’s determined to follow his example for tonight.

Getting the bottle is easy enough - after all, who’s going to deny the king’s friend and Glaive and unofficial Council member? All it takes is a practiced smile - fake, they’re always fake now - to charm the kitchen workers into giving him a ten-year-old bottle of some fine liquor he can’t pronounce. He manages to hide it in his chair’s compartment as he heads back to his room, but his heart pounds nonetheless as he rolls through the halls. He’s not sure if it’s fear of being caught or the roiling self-hate in his head that’s bringing his heart rate up so much. It’s certainly not exercise, though. He can’t exercise. He hasn’t picked up his pistols in months. He’s useless. 

It’s dark when he returns to his room. He’d almost run into Ignis, but thankfully he’d glimpsed him from down the hall and relied on the softness of his wheels on the carpet to make his escape. He feels a bit like a criminal sneaking around like this, desperate to drown his feelings in something he can control. He’s alive, isn’t he? He shouldn’t be moping like this. Nobody can know.

Nobody can know.

He’s not exactly a lightweight, but there hadn’t been much alcohol to go around during the Night. Nobody could really afford to hoard and binge on alcohol, except maybe the old drunks and those who tried to make it through the Night without feeling a thing. Not many of those people made it out, come to think of it.

He doesn’t bother with a glass.

The liquor burns going down, and he winces against the feeling, but he welcomes it too. It feels like the sunlight used to on particularly bright days, when it would hit his skin and something deep down would growl and lash out and cry  _ no _ -

He almost feels like himself again.

But he can’t forget about the leg. How could he, when it’s all he can see when he looks down?

He sneers down at the stump where his right leg should be; it’s red-veined and scarred and a reminder of everything he lost with the dawn. 

All of it - the carefully molded muscle, built up over years of work and sweat and murder - yes, blood, sweat, and tears-

It's gone.

He holds onto the bottle and begs the world to give him the mercy of sleep. Of forgetting, if only for a little while. The world swims around him with every gulp.

If Prompto’s being honest, he forgets a lot after this part.

It’s not a dreamless sleep that he finds himself in, though. There are faces there, and muddled memories that intertwine and fuse into something all their own. 

The images are blurry, especially now, swimming together in a haze of alcohol and distant time and deep-down pain. His face, reflected. The barcode on his wrist. The noxious glowing red burst of a magitek core as it shatters beneath his bullet, spilling out the miasma of daemons and hate and  _ someone like me, that could have been me- _

The smile on Noct’s face when they destroy a dropship worth of MTs. His eagerness to eviscerate anything connected to the Fall of Insomnia and the death of his father.

_ They’re just robots, _ Noct says flippantly, covered in the fading embers of a dead MT. And even though Prompto doesn’t  _ know _ yet, he suspects, he thinks, he somehow just  _ knows- _

_ Do you know what I could have become? _

Cindy smiles up at him, fitting the leg onto his aching thigh, proud of what she’s done. The coolness of metal and plastic on his Scourge-scarred flesh, and the way it felt, sickeningly, like home. Astrid and Nils in the room with them, responsible for this machinery that reminds him of every trooper he has ever killed. He can see Niflheim in their faces, can see himself in Astrid’s blue eyes, can only look at them and see Verstael and Immortalis and the whole of the magitek infantry.

With this leg, he can’t be anything but a monster. Even with the Scourge out of his veins, there’s no denying it. There’s no denying this truth.

It makes him sick. The room is spinning and all he can think is  _ monster, you’re a monster, shut up and don’t say a word- _

_ other people have it worse- _

The room is hazy and his mind is stuffed full of cotton and water and daemons. He hates it. He hates it. He hates himself.

From then on, the world goes black.

And Prompto’s almost thankful for the numbness.

He comes to lying in a puddle of his own drool and spilled liquor. Well. That’s a waste. He tries wiggling his leg but no, that wound has not healed. 

It never will. 

What a waste.

No use trying to fix it.

He doesn’t bother trying to get off the floor. What’s the point, anyway?

If he stares hard enough at the mirror across the room, he can see the cloudy, miserable blue of his eyes, and the sickly spidering of his veins across his skin. With the ugly pallor of the alcohol, the red stands out all the more. He thinks about Noctis. There are so many things holding him to Noctis, even if the magic between them has been ripped away. They both have the veins of fire which they received with the dawn. The difference is that Noct’s mark him as a savior and Prompto’s brand him as the monster he’s always been. Now everyone knows. They don’t say anything, but they know.

Most other Scourge victims have localized veins where their infection has been burned away, depending on the advancement of their affliction. Prompto’s though, has always had the Starscourge in his veins. His whole body is spidered with the proof of his purpose. The people in the Citadel must know as much; there had been rumors for years about the MT program ever since former Niflheim scientists had come to Lucis and exposed the secrets of the empire.

Someone must have connected the dots. Someone must know that there’s a connection between Prompto’s fair face and red veins. Someone must look at him with a mechanical leg and see the specter of a magitek trooper. Someone must know.

And he’s never been more ashamed.

But then he thinks of Noctis again.

He thinks about one of their late night conversations, when Prompto had asked him why he’d shaved his face.

_ It’s familiar,  _ Noct had told him quietly, echoing something he’d said months ago.  _ But it’s also not him. _

_ Him?  _ Prompto had asked.

_ Ardyn, _ Noctis had spit with a snarl in his throat.  _ I may have looked like my dad, but all I saw when I looked in the mirror was what I saw in the Crystal. Ardyn’s truth. Who he is. Who I am.  _ He’d shivered beside Prompto.  _ But I know one thing for sure. _

_ What’s that? _

And Noctis had smiled, triumphant and fierce.  _ I’m not him. I never will be. _

Prompto thinks about that a lot.

Now, lying on the floor, he looks at his reflection and sees Noct’s eyes looking back at him in shades of their shared blue and the red of a magitek trooper.

Gods, what would Noct say if he saw him now?

He’d probably remind him of that night, and the realization he’d come to. He’d tell Prompto that he should know his truth. That he’s always known his truth.

But gods,  _ what is it? _

_ Who am I? _

“I’m Prompto,” he whispers. Then again, louder: “I’m Prompto.”

He knows that. That’s his name. He’s always known that. That’s not what he needs. That’s not what he means.

_ Who am I? _

“Prompto Argentum.” His voice wavers. 

_ Who am I? _

“My name is Prompto Argentum,” he tells his reflection. He stares into the red-rimmed eyes of the man he never wanted to be. “My name is Prompto Argentum. I’m a citizen of Lucis. I was born to be someone else’s tool, but I’m not him. I’m me.”

He swallows.

“My name is Prompto Argentum,” he says, louder. “I was born to be a magitek trooper. I’m a Lucian. I’m a soldier of the Kingsglaive. My friends are in the Kingsglaive with me. The king is my best friend.”

It feels good to say. In the darkness of his room, his reflection almost looks strong.

“I’m Prompto Argentum,” he whispers, “and I’m never going back.”

Yes. That’s right.

_ I’m not him. _

And the leg makes him no less the person he is. It makes him no more like the person who chose to bring him into the world.

And it all just...makes sense.

Breathlessly, silently, he smiles, and the red-veined man in the mirror does too.

He needs to do something about this.

Ignis can’t help him with this, and neither can Noctis, nor Gladio. They’re all too close, and they’ll shower him in platitudes before they try to tell him what he needs to hear. They can’t help him with this part.

But maybe there’s someone who can.

His phone is there on the floor beside him, thankfully away from the puddle of spilled liquor. Prompto levers himself up until he’s sitting with his back against his bed and curls his hands around the phone like it’s the only thing keeping him here. He sits like that for a few minutes, hunched over the phone, protecting it as he would protect a treasure or how he’d once held Noctis in a bathroom just months ago.

But he needs to clear the buzzing and the haze and the pain from his mind, so he dials the number he needs. He knows it by heart now; he’d used it enough during the Night that it's just an instinct. 

“Please pick up,” Prompto begs in a whisper, ashamed of the way his voice is thick around the tears in his throat.

It’s picked up on the first ring.

“Cor?” he whispers into the phone. On the other end, there’s the soft rhythm of breathing, waiting for him to speak. “Can you help?”

“Of course,” Cor says immediately, and his voice is the soothing rumble of far-off thunder. “Anything you need.”

“Anything?” Prompto whispers, and his voice cracks.

“Anything,” Cor swears.

And that’s what makes him cry, curled up on the floor of his bedroom, stupidly drunk and miserable beyond words. Gods, for once he doesn’t have to be the strong one. Now Cor knows, and he knows that Prompto is aching and drunk and hurt, and he’s listening. And he’ll do anything for Prompto.

_ Gods. How could I have let it get like this? _

Cor stays quiet the whole time that Prompto sobs. But he’s there, and that’s what Prompto needs. He hears the even cadence of Cor’s breathing, and the muffled static sound of it brings his own breaths back into a softer cadence.

“Thank you,” Prompto breathes into the phone, and he means it. He means it. He does.

He falls asleep like that, on the floor, with Cor still on the line.

For once, he doesn’t have any nightmares.

Cor meets him at dawn on the stony plaza where Prompto lost his leg. It’s an achingly familiar place to be, and usually Prompto would avoid this place and all the memories. But maybe now, today, he can stand here and claim the city for himself once more.

His head is pounding with a hangover, and he’s miserable and cold and shivering in the morning air, but the sun lends a gentle warmth and the sight of Cor somehow makes him feel safe out here.

For once, Cor’s not in his formal Crownsguard fatigues. This morning, he’s wearing soft black pants - not quite jeans - and a warm gray shirt that smooths his edges without swallowing him up. He looks different when he’s not in a suit; the soft blacks and grays of his casual clothes make him look less like a legend and more like the man he is. He’s past fifty now, and his hair is lined with silver, but there’s still something bold and fierce in his light blue eyes that’s undiminished by his age. There’s something in the color of his gaze that evokes the eye of a hurricane and the stormy color of the sea before a storm. It makes Prompto feel a little more alive; a little more at home. 

Prompto wishes that he’d done this sooner.

It’s a good thing that Cor’s here. Many of his more intensive militant duties have been left to Iris, who’s working out in greater Lucis to keep the populace safe. Now, Cor’s here to stay, devoted to the king and his subjects just as he’s always been. Prompto can’t imagine a Lucis without Cor Leonis.

And now, he supposes, he can’t imagine a  _ Prompto  _ without Cor.

He looks down at his lap. He’s lain the prosthetic across his thighs, balancing it precariously on his trip here. Its constant weight has made his arm hair stand on end, sure, but it’s also grounded him. It reminds him who he is.

Perhaps the familiarity can work to his advantage.

Prompto holds out the leg to Cor. His arms are unsteady with the weight of it, still weakened by the Scourge leaving his body as a fraction of what it’d been. But Cor’s eyes crinkle into an expression that might be pride, and he takes the metal leg with infinite care.

“I’m ready,” Prompto tells him, releasing the promise into the chill morning air. His voice sounds stronger than he’d thought it would.

“Okay,” Cor says. “Let’s get to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually ended up starting to draw the older chocobros because this fic has consumed me; I'm hoping that I'll have all of the _ashes_ boys by the end of this. You can check out Ignis, who's linked in chapter 1 :). There's also amazing art from jaciopara on chapter 2.
> 
> and [here's](http://triplehelix.tumblr.com/post/165589275104/whats-so-sad-about-a-bunch-of-robots-getting) sad Prompto.


	18. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confession and connection.

Noctis is in one of his better moods today.

The past two months have been rocky, to say the least. Ignis has been there with Noctis through most of it, guiding him through the long days at the Citadel. Gladio and Prompto have helped, of course, but Noctis has always called Ignis first whenever he was in distress. Ignis has known too many sleepless nights sitting at the head of Noct’s bed, watching over him as he sleeps fitfully beside him. 

Perhaps not too many; he’s happy to be there for Noct. He just wishes that the bad nights wouldn’t come to Noct as often, and that he’d know some semblance of peace after months of misery that Ignis has brought upon him.

His humor is sharper now, and there’s a cynical edge to his voice when he jokes. He still displays interest in enough of his favorite things, but there’s an edge to his laughs that tells Ignis that there’s not as much joy there as there once had been. Maybe it’ll never be there like it was.

But today, Noctis is in one of his more humorous moods, and even though he walks into his office an hour late, Ignis considers it a victory.

“Nice of you to show up,” he says lightly, setting aside his reports when the door clicks open.

“Was tired. Slept a bit.”

“A bit.” Ignis folds his hands on the desk before him. “Welcome to the Citadel, Your Majesty.”

“Bah,” Noctis drawls, and Ignis can practically see him hand-wave it away. His footsteps draw closer, bypassing the king’s desk entirely until Noct is close enough to reach out and touch, if Ignis should wish it. He’s probably leaning against the desk, staring down at Ignis with a stare that feels like warmth and dormant magic.

“Responsible as always, I see,” Ignis laments, looking up at where he expects Noctis to be. “What is it you’re wearing today? Something presentable, I hope?”

“Black dress shirt, black trousers, black shoes.”

Ignis frowns. “Any adornments?”

“Uh. Does the knee brace count?”

“Is it acting up again?”

Noctis sighs. “Yeah.”

“Very well.” Ignis will have to consult the doctors to see if there’s anything to be done. “There should be a jacket,” he insists, trying to envision the outfit. He really does hope that Noct’s wearing one of the good shirts.

“Do I have any meetings today?”

Ignis pinches at the bridge of his nose. “No,” he admits.

Noct’s voice gets smug. “So I don’t need the jacket.”

“You’re a menace,” Ignis warns him, but he drops the matter. No use sending Noct back to his room to change like a chastised child; he is, after all, the king.

When Noctis speaks again, his triumphant smugness has transformed into his particular brand of casual speech, lazy and content: “Has Prom been back to work yet?”

“His office is empty.”

Noctis huffs. “Have you seen him, then?”

Ignis smirks and says, “Ask me that again.”

Noctis swats ineffectively at Ignis’s arm. Ignis mock-winces and leans out of the way. Noctis tells him, “You’re impossible.”

“Seems we’ve traded roles, then.”

“Ha.” Noctis drums his fingers on the desk. “What are you doing in my office anyway?”

Ignis tries his best not to take offense. There’s no malicious edge to Noct’s voice, so Ignis hopes it’s just another one of his tactless questions. “There is an extra desk, after all. And I have other reasons.”

“Like?”

“This place is a mess.”

“You can’t even see it, Ignis.”

Ignis fixes a solid look in Noct’s direction, arching an eyebrow until he hears Noctis make a quiet, flustered sound. “I know you, Noctis. And your tendencies.”

Noctis snorts. “Full names?”

Ignis shrugs. “It seems to have gotten your attention, so it had the desired effect.”

“You shrug a lot more now,” Noctis points out. “Doesn’t seem like you.”

“Well, with age, one becomes more cynical. Besides, nobody had much of a need for etiquette when we were fighting for our lives in the dark.”

“Can’t say I’m complaining, then,” Noctis teases. “You’re more fun when you loosen up a bit.”

“And I’m far happier when my workspace is  _ clean _ ,” Ignis retorts. “You will be, too.”

“Hasn’t bothered me yet,” Noctis points out. 

Ignis says, “That’s because you never learned the value of organization-”

“I did-”

“Despite my  _ continuous  _ efforts.”

“You’re very dramatic, Ignis.”

“You’d be dramatic too if you served a king like you.”

Noctis swats his arm again. “Don’t speak against your king.”

“Then I’ll put him to work instead,” Ignis retorts, pushing out the desk chair and stretching to his full height. He raises an eyebrow at Noctis, who they both know is decidedly shorter than him.

“You win,” Noctis mutters, cowed. “What is it you need, my disrespectful chamberlain?” He asks, putting a half-mocking spin on the formal words.

“Care to help me do this?” Ignis asks, and he gestures to the filing drawer he knows is behind the desk. He lowers himself to the floor, folding his legs so that he’s cross-legged. He makes a beckoning gesture towards the spot beside him. “You’ll have to join me here on the floor, I’m afraid.”

“Carpet clean enough for you?” Noctis teases, but he settles down on the floor nonetheless. His knee settles in a gentle overlap atop Ignis’s, and he doesn’t move it.

“It will be,” Ignis retorts, “as soon as you help me clean it.”

Noctis huffs out a ghost of a laugh. “That’s what I thought.”

Ignis enjoys hearing the laughs. In the two months since Noctis had begun his recovery, his tone has gotten lighter and his chuckles and smiles have been more frequent. Sure, it’s minimal, and he still has bad days when all he can do is rage and sob and sulk, but Noct had never been the expressive type to begin with. Ignis will take what he can get, and he’ll cherish it.

“So what is it today?”

Ignis shifts and reaches over to the filing cabinet, tugging it open. It screeches a bit, still worn from its ten years of sitting neglected in the Citadel, and he winces at the grating sound. He dips his hand inside and pulls out a thick filing folder. “See this?” he asks, waving it carefully so as not to disturb its contents.

“It’s a folder.”

“Astute observation, Noct.” Ignis raises an eyebrow. “This is critical written information about much of Lucis and the surrounding areas. People, places, events, you name it. With many of our servers still down, we need the physical copies more than ever.”

“Okay, so here they are. What’s the problem.”

“The problem, Noct, is that I can’t read them.”

Noctis stiffens palpably beside Ignis; the muscle in his leg tenses where it sits atop Ignis’s knee. “Oh. Of course,” he says, and there’s a quiet stutter in his words. “Completely forgot. Not like I forgot, really, but I just-” He stops and sighs, and his clothing rustles as he makes a helpless gesture with his hands. “You know.”

“I know,” Ignis agrees with a small smile. “No harm done.” He runs his finger along the line of the folder’s edge, mulling over his next words. He can feel the warm weight of Noct’s gaze shift to his hands, expectant and unblinking. “As your advisor, I am ill-equipped to help you unless I can organize these files in a way I can read. Luckily, there is a machine for that, and I’ve brought it in here for that very purpose. It’s behind you, actually.”

“Oh.” Noctis shifts and turns, and his leg briefly lifts up from Ignis’s, leaving the spot where it’d lain to grow cold. There’s a quiet clattering as he lifts something up and brings it around, settling it on the floor before them. “This?” He falls silent for a second. “Oh. Uh. It says it’s a vocal label maker?”

Ignis feels another small smile tug at his lips. “Indeed.”

“Oh. Nice.” Noct pauses. “What does it do?”

“Simply what it says on the tin. It prints labels based on vocal commands. The labels will go on these folders.”

“Hm.” Noctis plucks the folder from Ignis’s hand, probably inspecting its contents. Ignis hopes he won’t mess up the order of the files too badly.

“Once we have the labels, I’ll know which folders are which, and then it’s simply a matter of running the reports through a scanner to have them reprinted in the physical script. Then I’ll have files I can read when the text-to-voice software on our computers isn’t enough.”

Noctis is silent save for the quiet rustling of pages in the file. “Seems like a hassle,” he says thoughtfully. “It should be easier for you to do things.”

Ignis shrugs. “It’s the way things are.”

“I don’t like it.”

“The Citadel didn’t have many, if any, blind employees at the time of the Fall. There was no need for optimization of this level, especially in the office of the king. When I was here last, I did have my sight, after all. I helped my uncle sort these very files.” Ignis can still remember his excitement at being allowed into the private office of King Regis himself. He’d stood here once and he’d thought it was the best day of his life. He’d been so naive back then, and far too idealistic for his own good.

“Well, we should change it. You should be able to read anything you need to. Anyone should. You’re my advisor and this is the Citadel. We have everything we need here to make it so you can read everything like you used to.”

“Everything?” Ignis asks wryly. “I think not.”

Noct’s voice is harder and frustrated.  _ Oh.  _ He’s not joking. “I’ll make it happen,” he swears.

“Noct, are you aware of the resources-”

“I don’t care. I’m the king.”

“Noct,” Ignis sighs. It’s a kind sentiment, and exactly the brand of stupidly noble impulses that Noct has always had. “It’s not that easy.”

“It should be,” Noct says firmly. And then again, echoing his earlier words, “I don’t like it.”

Ignis turns to look towards Noctis. “I know you don’t,” he says softly, “but until such time as we can focus on that, we can still do what we can to make things easier. Yes?”

“...Yes,” Noctis admits. He rubs at the back of his neck, audibly scratching at the hair and fabric there.

“Good,” Ignis says, hoping that his voice conveys warmth. He reaches forward and turns the label maker on. “Shall we?”

“Uh. Yeah. How do we…?”

“You, actually,” Ignis corrects, “since I can’t read the labels. You need only read them out loud at the proper volume. I’ll stay quiet. Once you do the first label, it should recognize your voice.” Gods, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed modern technology during the Night. Coming back to the Citadel has given back so much that he’d thought lost for ever.

“Accordo,” Noctis says in a quiet monotone. He pauses. “Is that right?”

Ignis tries to hide his small smile, and isn’t ashamed that he fails. “A bit louder, Noct,” he encourages.

Noctis says again, in a firmer voice, “Accordo.”

The machine comes to life, humming and clicking as it types out the label in a series of dots. 

“Good,” Ignis praises quietly, and he can practically feel Noctis puff up in pride. It’s good to know that Noct still retains his elements of self-esteem, and that he still craves praise. Another part of him, then, has survived the horrors he’s known.

Noctis hums a bit as the machine prints out the label. “How does it know how to spell it?” he asks.

“The software identifies possible matches from a database, I believe. It’s a good system, if I do say so myself.” Ignis reaches out and plucks the label from the machine when it falls silent. He checks the spelling quickly and nods in approval. “And here it is, written out.”

There’s a soft whisper of hair and fabric, and Ignis can feel the ghost of a breath over his fingers as Noct leans in to study the label. “It’s amazing how just dots can be letters,” he says, awe coloring his voice.

“Quite a useful script for people like me,” Ignis replies.

Noctis hums again and sits back up, sitting patiently while Ignis retrieves the folder. Ignis can feel his gaze like the sure heat of a fireplace, ever-shifting and ever-warm.

“Next one?” Ignis asks, smoothing the label over the folder’s lip. He runs his fingers along the raised dots on the label, over and over.  _ Accordo, Accordo, Accordo. _ It’s not the same as seeing Noctis say the words, but the feeling under his fingertips reminds him of the gentle rasp of his voice.

Noct is silent.

“Noct?” Ignis prompts.

“A- uh.” Noctis stutters and stops. He clears his throat.

Ignis tilts his head to the side. “You can do it,” he encourages.

“Aldercapt,” Noctis mutters.

_ Ah.  _ Ignis pushes his visor up the bridge of his nose and ponders for a moment. He hadn’t even realized that this could be a possibility; it was a dangerous oversight on his part. But the damage has been done, it seems. “You don’t have to-”

“Aldercapt,” Noctis insists, louder.

The machine clicks to life.

“Noctis,” Ignis says again.

“It’s okay,” Noctis says. He plucks the label from the machine before Ignis can get to it and holds onto it for a moment. Ignis can imagine what he looks like, cross-legged beside him, running his fingers over the word he has just said. “Here.” He passes it over.

Ignis takes it delicately and places the label on its designated place. “Noctis,” he tries, “if this is not what you want to do, you can feel free to-”

“I’m fine.” The stack of folders rustles as Noctis tugs the next one from the top. He flips through it for a moment, dangerously silent. He makes a quiet noise that sounds infinitely, incredibly sad.

Ignis has seen these files before. He knows what comes next. He knows, and he dreads it, because even now, just thinking about it gives him phantom pains and the aching memory of sight.

“Altissia,” Noct says, voice decidedly more strained.

The machine clicks and hums into their pained silence.

Ignis can imagine what Noct sees.

Lady Lunafreya on the altar. Leviathan rising from the sea. The destruction of the city. The chancellor, murderous and spiteful and cruel. Lunafreya in the waves, falling through the water, never to be seen again.

Does Noct think of Ignis too?

“Gods, Ignis, I-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ignis interrupts swiftly. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah.” Noct’s voice shakes. “Ignis, I’m sorry.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Noct barks out a laugh, breathy and bitter. “I think plenty about it.”

Ignis winces.  _ Word choice, Scientia.  _ “I understand,” he says instead.

“Guess I didn’t realize that a lot of important Lucian files cover people and places we know.”

“The king must know about anything and everything he can,” Ignis reminds him gently. “Especially enemies...and allies.”

Noctis makes a quiet humming sound, mulling that over. “That’s true,” he admits. 

“Would you like to stop? I can get Prompto to help me later.” Maybe not; he hasn’t seen Prompto in a day or two. Not since he’d left dinner in a rush. “Or perhaps Gladio.”

“I want to help, Ignis, I really do.” Noct sounds weary and upset. Is he frustrated with himself? He shouldn’t be. There’s adjustment for everything; it’s only natural that he could be affected by the memories of the past, even after all this time. Now more than ever, Noctis should be allowed to be vulnerable. “I just-”

“Noct,” Ignis interrupts him quietly. Something in the back of his mind hisses  _ you interrupted the king,  _ but he shoves it down, instead choosing to interrupt his dearest, oldest friend. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He reaches forward to the switch on the label maker. “See? Not a problem.”

Noctis huffs and bats Ignis’s hand away before he can press the switch. “I just need a break,” he insists.

“Fine,” Ignis demures, and he sits back, propping up one hand behind himself in the plush carpet. It feels good to lean back and just relax like this, even if they are in the king’s office. He just wishes he could offer the comfort that Noct needs right now. Prompto might know. He’d distract Noct from his spinning thoughts and get him back on track. With Ignis, though, Ignis fears that Noct would just be left to wallow in his woes, muffled by Ignis’s misguided comfort.

In the hospital room, there had been something between them that had transcended relief and comfort. In the two months since then, they’ve been nearly inseparable, lending some sort of reassurance to each other that they can’t explain but both sorely need. But still, the ghost of Ignis’s betrayal hovers between them, shadowing them with every step they take together through once-familiar halls.

All he can do is run from the shadow, fearing a repeat of Hammerhead. If that happened-

He doesn’t know what he’d do.

“You never would have let us sit like this when we were kids,” Noctis points out with a smile in his voice. “You would have lost your mind.”

“Who’s to say I haven’t?” Ignis asks, smiling back. “After all, here we are on the floor.”

“You’d never break the rules,” Noctis says. “Not even now.”

“Well.” Ignis levels a look at Noctis that he hopes conveys some sort of mischief. “When one is in charge, one makes the rules, no?”

“By royal decree, then,” Noctis says, playing along. Ignis can hear the grin in his voice. It sounds beautiful. It sounds like Noct.

He tilts his head back, staring up at the ceiling he can’t see, and he smiles. “Good to hear that you’ve warmed up to the idea,” he says. “It is a rather nice carpet.”

“It is.”

The two of them lapse into a quiet, thoughtful silence, sitting together on the floor of the king’s office with smiles still lingering on their lips. It’s comfortable, and the sunlight that streaks into the office feels warm against Ignis’s face. 

For once, things are simple.

“Ignis,” Noctis says quietly into the air between them.

“Hm?”

“I wanted to thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“For...for being here. For me. When I needed you.”

Ignis ducks his head, tearing his attention from the ceiling. Looking up bares his throat to some danger he can’t quite fathom, but it feels a lot like guilt. He tightens his fingers in the carpet behind him, grounding himself in the soft warmth of the Citadel. “Noctis,” he murmurs.

One of Noct’s hands suddenly finds Ignis’s wrist; Ignis sucks in a quick breath at the feeling of warm fingers holding him there, captive. “Ignis,” Noct says, and there’s something urgent and soft in his voice that makes Ignis’s heart stutter and stop. “Look at me.”

“Noctis.”

“Please.”

Ignis resists it; he tries. He really tries. There’s something inside him that knows that something about this isn’t right. He knows what’ll happen if he looks. He knows, because he’s close enough to smell Noct’s aftershave.

But even that is more of a temptation than a deterrent, and he finds his head turning of its own accord, drawn towards Noct’s gaze by instinct and admiration, like a flower to the sun.

“Noct,” he murmurs, closing his blind eye as if that’ll make this any better. So much of him is urging him forward, desperate to close the distance between them. There’s something in him, though, black and poisonous and  _ right _ , which hisses to him that he does not deserve this, and that he never could and never will.

He knows what this is.

Doesn’t he want this?

Noctis notices. He always notices. He’s close enough that he must see something pained on Ignis’s face. “Ignis,” he says again.

“Yes?” Ignis asks, voice strained.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid,” Ignis insists.

“You are,” Noctis tells him softly. “Your pulse is racing.”

Gods, he’s not getting any further away.

Ignis is good at knowing what people want. It’s his talent. He’s known it since he was young and his uncle had introduced him to the king and the crown prince and told him that he would be by the prince’s side for the rest of his life. He’d learned how to read people and use their desires to his advantage. He’s the best diplomat in Lucis. He knows what people want, and he knows how to give it to them while still reaping a benefit for himself.

He knows that Noctis wants right now too.

He’d known that Noctis had wanted to die, too, and he’d ripped him from the clutches of death anyway.

He can’t do this, can’t do this, he did something wrong-

“Ah.” Ignis draws back jerkily and pushes his visor up his nose, hoping that his hand will mask his lack of composure. “There’s work to be done.”

“Right,” Noctis says quickly. The air between them swiftly grows cold as he draws away. “More labels?”

“Yes, I-” Ignis trails off. Does he really want to work on the labels right now? Is that the immediately pressing matter here? “I-”

“Ignis?” Noct’s voice is quiet and still so close. “Are you okay?”

Ignis scrabbles at his visor again, clutching at the bridge of it like it’s a lifeline. Gods, he’s glad he’s wearing it today. He needs the protection. “I - Yes.” He clears his throat weakly. “Merely a passing worry.”

“You’re horrible at lying sometimes, all that training be damned.”

“Am I?” Ignis knows, of course. There are some times when all of his careful training eludes him and he flounders in the sea of his own words, unsure of what to do and what to say. He feels that now, and he’s stumbling in the dark, struggling for a breath of air. 

“You are.” Noct’s voice isn’t getting any closer, but it’s not getting any further away either. The scent of his aftershave fills the space between them, carrying hints of pine and cinnamon that Ignis has grown so used to ever since they’d returned to Insomnia. “Something is keeping you from-” He stops. “From doing things that I think you want.”

Ignis shakes his head firmly. “No,” he says, but he doesn’t know what he’s refusing: the fact that he’s hiding or that there’s something he wants?

Unfortunately, the two things are hopelessly intertwined.

He clears his throat again, hoping to dispel the hope and misery that are rising in his throat. It doesn’t work, not really, but he has to try. “It’s like I said,” he says softly, “there’s work to be done.”

“Right,” Noctis says, and maybe Ignis detects a hint of bitterness in his tone. “The labels.”

“The labels,” Ignis echoes.

“The labels,” Noctis says again, and there’s definitely something bitter and miserable in his voice. But there’s also a tone in there that sounds like his old monotone, when he’d shut down to keep others from hearing the force of whatever he was feeling. But that armor seems to have failed him ever since his resurrection, and he’s left bare, letting Ignis read him easily, painfully.

Noctis draws his knees up to his chest, cutting off all physical points of contact with Ignis. Even though they’re mere inches apart, Ignis knows that right now, in the absence of magic or comfort, they have never been further apart.

There’s something cold and uncomfortable between them now. It’s a sting that Ignis knows he’s inflicted upon Noctis: the pain of refusal, of rejection. Another woe he’s added to Noct’s heart, then.

Gods, why is he such a failure?

“Amicitia,” Noct says harshly into their silence, forcing the machine into life. Each click almost stirs Ignis into a flinch, like the machine, too, is chastising him.

Ignis takes the label when it’s printed without so much as a thank you, pressing it onto the folder that Noctis drops unceremoniously in front of them. When he runs his finger over this label, all he can feel is the misery in Noct’s voice.

Damn the labels. Damn it all. He can’t stay quiet any longer.

“Noctis,” he begins slowly.

“What?” Noctis asks, still flipping through the pages of one of the folders.

“I do believe there’s a conversation we’ve put off for too long.”

Noct pauses in his motion; Ignis can hear the soft whisper of his finger against the paper, as if he’s running his finger across the page slowly. “This again?” Noctis asks.

“It’s been two months, Noctis. Two months since-”

“Yeah, I know.” Noct’s voice is shorter now. Harder. “What about it?”

Ignis takes a moment to collect his thoughts and form them into words, grasping at letters in the dark. It had seemed so much easier to learn to fight without his eyes; he’d never realized that talking to Noct would be the thing to leave him floundering. “Noct, I know you didn’t want to talk about it before, but this has gone on long enough. After seeing how Prompto’s been doing, and how much we’ve missed regarding him, I can’t help but think about what I’ve done to you.”

“What you’ve done,” Noctis echoes, and there’s that bitterness again. “I can imagine.”

Ignis bows his head. “I’ve done too much to harm you. Far more than I’ve ever done to help you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be,” Ignis tells him. “You don’t need to fake it, Noctis. I know that what I’ve done to you is a betrayal in every sense.”

Noctis hums a bit, but it’s more noncommittal than anything. His gaze burns into Ignis’s awareness, and Ignis is tempted to shrink under the weight of his stare. But he can’t hide from this. He can’t.

“I need to know what I did,” he says roughly. “I need to know, or I’ll never be able to atone. Not really. I need to know the full extent.”

“The full extent?”

“Of what I stole from you,” Ignis rasps. “Of what I stole you from.”

“You want to know?” Noctis asks. “Really?”

“All of it,” Ignis swears. “I need to know.”

Noctis shifts beside Ignis. He doesn’t come any closer, and the spot on Ignis’s knee remains cold, but some of the icy tension bleeds out of him. “So.”

“What happened?” Ignis asks softly. “After, I mean.”

“After I died?” Noctis asks, and Ignis flinches. “It’s the truth,” Noct continues, apparently having noticed the reaction, “And you need to hear this.”

Ignis nods miserably. “I know.”

“Good.” Noctis blows out a breath, letting it fly through the room with a soft whoosh. “So. After.”

“After,” Ignis echoes. “We found you on the throne.”

“My dad’s sword, yeah. It was him. It was all of the Lucii, one by one. They had to go through me to add the power to the Ring. But my dad was last.”

“Thirteen times?” Ignis breathes.

“Thirteen times. And gods-” Noctis pauses and heaves out another breath. “It hurt so much.”

Ignis wants to tell him that he would have been there for him if Noctis had allowed it. He wants to tell him he would have taken every blow if it meant keeping Noctis safe.

But he doesn’t, because he wasn’t, and he didn’t. He’d just stalled for time, and then he’d made every sacrifice pointless. Empty.

Instead, he just says, “And then?”

“And then I was in the Ring. Or the Crystal. Or somewhere where there wasn’t time or anything.

“And for a second-” Noctis lets out a soft, disbelieving chuckle. “It almost felt like you were there. The three of you, there, by magic.”

The thing is, Ignis  _ knows.  _ He’s always known, but he’d never realized that that-

_ -there’s something like anticipation burning in the magical connection that holds them together, and it crackles with the sheer volume of energy. something is happening, and they aren’t there- _

-it was them. With Noctis. But it makes sense. Of course it does.

“We were,” he breathes, and he looks up, meeting Noct’s gaze even though he’ll never see his eyes. “We were.”

“You were.” Maybe Noctis knew too. Maybe he felt it.

“And then?”

“And then-” Something pained enters his voice, strained and faraway. “I burned.”

Ignis knows, even though he can’t see what the light did to him. He knows the cost of the dawn. “The sun rose,” he murmurs, desperate to get past the mental image of Noct screaming; of Noct burning to bring the light back into the world.

“And I died,” Noctis finishes faintly. “Because my work was done. And I went somewhere else. I can’t describe it; I don’t think I ever could. But it looked like Lucis. And then I saw-”

“Saw what?”

“And I saw them, Ignis. All of them.”

“All of them?” Ignis asks tentatively.

“My family,” Noctis murmurs, voice tinged with awe. “Luna. My father. My  _ mother. _ And the others. Clarus. The Council. The Lucii. Everyone I’d known and lost.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Ignis says, because it does. But it just makes it worse, because he knows what comes after.

“I married Luna, you know.”

_ Ah.  _ He’d expected this. He’d known that, in a different life, in a kinder time, Noctis would have married Lady Lunafreya, and they would have known happiness. He’d never given thought to that life being the one beyond the grave.

It just makes him feel worse.

“I married her, and we were on the throne.” Noct’s voice is dreamlike and sad. “We were on the throne, and I kissed her, and I fell asleep. And everything-” He stops and makes a confused, sad noise in the back of his throat - almost a keening, a whining. “And everything went white. Like magic.”

“Like magic,” Ignis echoes, and the dread rises in his chest. He knows that magic. He knows it.

“The next thing I remember is feeling your hands on mine.”

At the words, Ignis’s fingers twitch in recognition of the memory. He can still remember the feeling. The coldness of Noct’s hands, and the way Prompto’s blood had been the only warm thing between their skin. The shaking - he still doesn’t know if it was from the cold or something worse. “I remember,” he says softly.

“You were the one who used the phoenix down.”

He knows this too. He remembers the warmth of dying magic and the stretch of time - heartbeats or centuries - when all that had filled the throne room was the silence of death. “I remember,” he repeats.

“You didn’t need to crush it with my hands. Just on my chest.” There’s a question in there somewhere, or an accusation. It feels more like the latter now, with Noctis hurting after Ignis turned him away.

“Your hands-” Ignis starts, but his voice fails him, and his words as well. “I held them. I held you.”

“Why?”

“Because you were dead, Noctis,” Ignis hisses, but he’s not angry at Noctis; it’s just the poison in his chest, rising with the sting of self-loathing. “Because you were dead, and I didn’t know if it would be my last time with you in that throne room.”

Noctis murmurs something under his breath that sounds like  _ Ignis,  _ but it’s so quiet and broken that Ignis can hardly hear it. But then he raises his voice and rasps, “So you held me. You held my hands.”

“I did.”

“And you brought me back to life.”

“Away from your peace,” Ignis finishes for him, even though the words stab through him with brutal force. It matters not; this is his atonement.

“Why’d you do it?”

And there’s the crux of it all, isn’t it? Isn’t that the question? Some part of Ignis, the wild part that runs on instinct and fear and need, knows that it was blind desperation. Some part of him, a part he tries his hardest to refuse, whispers that he transcended the boundaries of duty and friendship and acted out of some motive he refuses to name. And there’s the dark, poisonous part of him that hisses that he was selfish and cruel and malicious. And Ignis, here, now-

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why.

So he just says:

“I waited ten years. Ten years, Noct, in the dark.”

“Ten years in the dark,” Noct echoes thoughtfully. “You learned how to fight.”

“I did.”

“You were doing well for your yourself. You had a life. You were helping to run Lestallum. You helped run the  _ world _ for ten years.”

Ignis inclines his head. “I did.”

“You were secure. You were safe, or as much as you could be. You were ha-”

“No,” Ignis says firmly. “You know. I’ve told you.”

Noctis sighs. “Not once? You were never once happy?”

“Would you be?”

It brings him back to how it had been. The foul screeches of daemons careening overhead. The constant gnawing ache of hunger and fear. The nagging fear in the back of his mind whenever long months went by without a word from Gladio or Prompto. The creeping feeling that someone, somewhere, was suffering and that he was powerless to help them. And the mounting, endless despair that this was all for naught, and that they would die before they ever saw Noctis again.

No, he’d never been happy, not really. Not for ten years.

“Still. You could have taken up the mantle. Just you, or a new council, or something. You were able to do it. You still are.”

Ignis shakes his head. “I’ve never been one for the spotlight. I’m not cut out for kingship. That’s always been you. That’s always been your destiny.”

“My destiny was to die, Ignis.” Noct’s words fall like blades, cutting any protest from Ignis’s mouth. “And I died. I fulfilled my destiny.”

“You died.”

“And you-” Noctis cuts himself off, letting out a disbelieving, sharp laugh. “And you looked at my body and said  _ no. _ ”

“I did, didn’t I?” Ignis mutters, letting a wry, humorless grin drip from his lips. “I suppose I disagreed with destiny.”

“I never took you for a rule breaker, Ignis.”

Ignis retorts, “Rules are made to be broken.”

“You’ve never said that about rules before,” Noctis accuses. “To you, rules are never breakable.”

“They are if it’s worth it.” Ignis clenches his fists atop his knees, savoring the grounding force of his nails in his skin. “And you will always, always be worth it.”

“Ignis.”

“Always,” Ignis swears lowly, fiercely, because if there is one thing he knows, it is this. Only this.

“Ignis.”

“Gods, Noct, don’t you understand that I  _ need _ you?”

There are other words he could have said. Perhaps  _ need _ isn’t what he means. But he doesn’t know how to wrap his lips around other words with just as many letters; duty holds him back, ever-present and ever-painful.

Noct knows that.

“That’s what everyone keeps saying. That they’re nothing without me. That they need me.” Noctis’s hand is suddenly on Ignis’s wrist again, tentative and urgent but no less warm than before. “Ignis, you have to understand: you will never be nobody.”

“Noctis, I-”

“Ignis, come on-”

“I’m so sorry.” Ignis isn’t one for crying. He isn’t. But his eyes haven’t obeyed him since Altissia, and they betray him once more, sending warm streaks of seawater down his cheeks. Because he knows that voice. It’s softer than what he deserves after all of this. It’s Noct, and he’s not angry. It’s Noct, and he’s telling him that he is more than nobody.

“I know,” Noctis soothes, and there’s the thick sound of tears underlying his voice too, soft and quiet. “Ignis, I know.”

“But I-” Ignis gestures with the hand Noctis isn’t holding. “But I betrayed you. Your trust. Your desires.”

“You did.” Noctis falls silent, then continues, “You did, and still you refused to back away. Even when you were ashamed. Even when you were scared of me. You stayed.”

Ignis huffs out a sigh. “I would never leave.”

“Yeah, Specs.” There’s that old nickname, laced with an age-old fondness. “Yeah, I know.”

Briefly, Ignis is tempted to lean in towards Noctis and seek comfort in the warmth of his king. But the urge passes after a moment, and for that he’s thankful.

“You know, Noctis,” Ignis says slowly, “you were right.”

“About what?”

“There are things that I want,” Ignis says, even though his heart is hammering a strict staccato in his chest. “But now you understand why I couldn’t - why I can’t.”

Noctis shifts and sighs. “Can’t ever?” he asks. “Forever is a long time.” He snorts. “I would know.”

“Perhaps not ever,” Ignis amends softly. “But not now. Not today.”

“Not today,” Noctis repeats, sounding like he’s rolling the words over in his mouth, tasting them like every attempt Ignis ever made to recreate those pastries.

“I’m sorry,” Ignis says again. “For everything.” For things said and unsaid.

Noctis chuckles wetly, but his hand on Ignis’s wrist doesn’t move. His thumb shifts, just once, swiping thoughtfully along the line of Ignis’s pulse. “I know.”

"The one time I was selfish-" Ignis cuts himself off, seething. 

Noctis hums for a moment; Ignis doesn’t miss the note of pity in his voice. "You were," he agrees. "Selfish, I mean. It was my life to give, and not yours to take back." He shifts uneasily beside Ignis. "But you've done it, and it seems like I've made my peace."

Making his peace. Like he’d done before he’d gone to die. "And what of forgiveness?" Ignis asks, fearing the answer.

"Forgiveness might take a bit," Noctis admits, "but understanding is there now. And I could never hate you, Specs. Not after everything we've been through."

Ignis surprises himself with a smile, and inside his heart is fluttering with relief. "When did you become such a king?"

Noctis’s gaze is warm on his face, and though his voice is still lined with sadness there's something like humor in there too. "I had a pretty good advisor when I was a kid. You might know him."

“Well.” Ignis feels something like real, unadulterated joy blooming in him for the first time since he’d heard Noct’s voice in Hammerhead. “I hope you’ve kept him around.”

“I feel like I might need him. He can stay.”

Ignis smiles again, for real this time. “I think he could be convinced.”

Here they are, sitting on the floor of the office. A king and his chamberlain, lounging on old carpet like a couple of children.

Ignis remembers those children. He misses the easy simplicity of their youth, when the worst of their fears was being caught after Noct scribbled on that painting in the hall with the prophecy. 

But those children aren’t here. Now it’s just Ignis, blind and weary, and Noct, older and sadder and back to life.

Despite it all, Ignis doesn’t think he’d have it any other way.

“You know,” Noctis says slowly, “there’s a second desk in here for a reason.”

Ignis furrows his brow and tilts his head. “This is your office, Noctis. The king’s office.”

Noctis snorts. “You and I both know that I’d get nothing done in an office all by myself. Besides, you know the place better than I do.” He lets out a soft, raspy chuckle. “Also, who’s going to keep this place clean?”

Surprised, Ignis finds himself laughing. It makes his chest feel lighter, and it matches the soaring, fluttering feeling in the place that must be his heart.

Gods, it’s not magic, but it might as well be.


	19. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meetings and memories.

There’s a Council meeting today.

He doesn’t want to go, not really. But as the King’s Shield, he has a spot waiting for him on the Council, and Noctis had threatened to warp strike him into oblivion if he didn’t join the Council. Gladio had, of course, pointed out that Noctis can no longer warp strike, but Noctis had promised to find a way.

So he’s going to the meeting.

Gladio tugs at the collar of his suit, trying to work some of the suffocating stiffness out of it. Ignis is insisting that the Council meetings be held with some sort of formality in the name of tradition, and Noctis has agreed, so Gladio’s wearing one of his old suits that he’d neglected to pack for the journey to Altissia ten years ago. He’s lucky he didn’t grow much during the Night. If anything, he’s gotten leaner, sacrificing the comfort of extra food for the security of muscle and speed. There were other people who needed the food more than he did, anyway.

For once, he’s thankful for the soft warmth of the suit on his skin, so unlike his usual exercise wear or fatigues. The hallways are still chillier than they should be; it seems that even though it’s been a few months since the reclamation of the Citadel, they haven’t quite managed to plug all the gaps in the walls and windows. With winter falling on them slowly, Gladio expects that everyone will be wearing sleeves quite a bit more.

He’s trudging around on the main floor, stalling for time before the meeting, when he hears a set of uneven footsteps approaching from around a corner. He stops and stares, waiting for the footsteps to resolve themselves into an identity. It’s not the regular time for people to be on this floor, especially with them being as short staffed as they are. 

Oh. It’s Cor.

And beside him, Prompto walks slowly, wearing the prosthetic leg and using a crutch only on his right side.

Gladio breathes out a sigh at the sight of the two of them. He’s relieved; it’s been a few days since he’s caught sight of Prompto. 

Prompto grins up at him nervously as they draw level with each other. “Hey, Gladio,” he greets. “Been a while.”

“A few days,” Gladio agrees. “Thought we lost track of you.”

Prompto shrugs. “I’ve been...around.”

“Just not at the office.”

“Sometimes you just need a break, y’know?” 

“That’s true.” He looks away from Prompto and nods. “Marshal.”

Cor waves a hand at the name, shaking his head. “Cor.”

“Right.” Gladio looks from Cor to Prompto and back again. “So. You’re helping Prompto out?”

“I asked,” Prompto says.

Gladio blinks. “I know you did.” He frowns. “Did you think I wouldn’t have wanted you to?”

“No!” Prompto blurts, and he lets out a nervous giggle. “No, it’s just that -Well - You asked? And I kinda just - brushed you off? I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t want-”

“Prompto.” Gladio reaches forward and claps his hand gently over Prompto’s mouth, stunning him into silence. He shrugs. “I get it.”

“You do?” Prompto asks, muffled against Gladio’s hand. He’s got stubble, and it tickles.

“Yeah,” Gladio says. He smiles a bit, because he knows that Prompto sometimes has trouble reading his face. “Look, you know we’re here for you. But we’re not always the guys for the job.” He takes his hand off of Prompto’s mouth and takes a step back.

Prompto’s expression softens into relief. “Exactly,” he breathes. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Either way.” Gladio nods again to Cor. “I know you’re in good hands.”

Cor nods back, slow and sure.

Gladio looks back to Prompto. “Up and walking, I see.”

Prompto eyes him warily. “Yeah.” He half-chuckles. “Well, uh.” He shifts his weight onto his left leg so that he can wiggle the right crutch in the air. “Assisted walking.”

Gladio shrugs. “Still walking, in my book.”

It’s nice to see the glint of excitement that flashes in Prompto’s bright eyes for a second. “You think so?” Prompto asks, and it almost sounds like he’s twenty again, energetic and eager to please.

Gladio claps him on the back, but not as hard as he used to; he can see the way that Prompto is still off balance. “I know so,” he tells him, grinning.

Prompto practically preens under Gladio’s praise, smiling softly. “I’m happy to be walking,” he says. 

“You should be.”

“Here, uh-” Prompto cuts himself off and leans on his crutch, digging through his back pocket with his left hand. “Didn’t know if you’d want it, but Cor and I were out and walking and I don’t know if you’d been back or not so I just. Took the picture.”

Gladio leans forward, squinting down at the photo that Prompto’s produced from his pocket. It’s well lit, proof that Prompto hasn’t lost his touch, and there’s that characteristic dreamy look that he does so well. And, well-

It’s home.

Prompto’s captured the incredible half-awake quality of the Amicitia family estate at dawn. Gladio’s never seen it in the daytime until now; it just seemed natural to look at it under cover of night. But the newborn sunlight makes all the edges look ethereal and simultaneously incomplete and impossibly sharp. It makes Gladio’s home look like one of the castles like in the old books of castles and knights and everything Gladio had ever dreamed of being.

This must be the part of the story where the knight comes back to his kingdom to find it ravaged by the dragon.

But they’ve killed the dragon, right?

Prompto’s looking at him expectantly. He wants a reaction.

Of course none of them know that he’s been back. He never told any of them that he’d snuck out of the Citadel like a criminal under cover of night, still skittish and uncomfortable in his own skin and in the city he’d once called home. The only person to even come close to finding his hoard of treasures was Ignis, and he certainly hadn’t seen them.

“Wow, Prompto,” he says. “You really got its essence.” He looks up; meets Prompto’s expectant violet-blue gaze. “For real.”

“You can keep it, of course. It’s a gift.”

Gladio stares down at the photo, gently clasping it between his forefinger and thumb, trying his best not to get his fingerprints all over the shining paper. “Are you sure?”

“Dead serious.”

“Thank you,” Gladio tells him quietly. It’s another souvenir of his birthright, rising up to prod him into action. He’s teetering on the edge of some cliff that the gods or Oracle or kings might have called destiny.

He has been for a while, gluing himself to the cliff with the sheer force of  _ soon.  _

But the winds are changing at his back, and Gladio knows that something is going to be the force that overcomes the power of  _ soon  _ to send him tumbling off the cliff into  _ now. _

“Have you?” Prompto asks. “Gone back, I mean.”

“Might’ve passed by,” Gladio says, because he doesn’t want to get into it. He thinks of the bag in his closet, full of his father’s robes, his sister’s knife, and the sword and shield he tries so hard to ignore. He thinks of the photos he keeps in his bedside table drawer, each one worth a million words in the story of his father’s identity. It’s the only biography he’ll ever get.

Cor, standing silently by Prompto’s side, lets out a quiet breath of air through his nose - a silent laugh. When Gladio shoots a furtive glance at him, though, his face his solemn, drawn in something like absent grief as he stares down at the floor.

“You went there?” he asks.

Cor raises his eyes from the floor and meets Gladio’s, studying him for a moment. All at once, Gladio is stricken by how blue Cor’s eyes are. They’re not blue in the way that Noct’s left eye is, all gunmetal and ocean and dusk-dark sky. Instead, they’re blue in the way that daemon-warding lights are, pale and striking like the half-heartbeat of brightness that comes during a lightning strike at midnight. It’s like Cor is seeing him, studying him, and passing judgment all it once.

But it’s also just Cor, grieving in his own way.

“I did,” Cor admits.

“When?”

“Not long after the Night fell.” Cor’s eyes shift and focus on something over Gladio’s shoulder. “And again not too long ago. Two months, maybe.”

The maybe is a lie, and they both know it. Gladio knows that Cor would seek the solace of his friend’s home, especially after something happened to his king. After knowing only the Citadel and government housing for so long, it’s only natural that the Marshal would gravitate towards the burned-out shell of a place that had sheltered him. Gladio knows, of course. He’s got enough warm memories in the back of his mind of himself as a child, stumbling in on quiet informal gatherings in the living room when it was past his bedtime.

_ “Gladiolus,” Clarus says, but it’s not even a question. Just a statement, bemused and quiet. “You’re out of bed.” _

_ Gladio rubs his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Iris makes noise when she sleeps.” It’s true. His baby sister won’t shut up. _

_ “Iris is still a baby,” Clarus tells him wearily. _

_ “Yeah, she is,” Gladio mutters. Big baby. _

_ Clarus scrubs a hand across his face, half-slumping in his armchair. “Where did I go wrong?” he asks. _

_ “I heard voices,” Gladio offers. He points at the man in the other armchair, and the other one on the couch. _

_ “You wouldn’t have heard the voices if you were in bed like you’re supposed to be.” _

_ “Have a heart, Clarus,” says the man who Gladio’s dad calls Regis but who he tells Gladio he should call Your Majesty. “Let the boy sit with us. At least for a few minutes.” _

_ “There’s plenty of room on the couch,” the other man offers. He’s got a sterner face than Regis, but it’s less sad. He pats at the couch beside him. “Come on up, Gladio. I won’t bite.” _

_ Clarus groans. “Not you too, Cor.” _

_ Cor winks down at Gladio as he clambers up onto the couch. “Ignore your father and His Majesty; they forgot how to have fun.” _

_ Gladio frowns. “Dad is fun!” he protests. _

_ “Has your dad taught you how to thumb wrestle?” Cor challenges, and something bright and mischievous appears in his eyes. _

_ “Stop indulging him,” Clarus groans, but he’s clearly already given up. Gladio knows that voice; it’s the one he uses when Gladio convinces him to let him have more dessert than he has any business getting. _

_ Gladio’s already hooked. He scoots up next to Cor and smiles widely, all traces of sleep forgotten. “No,” he says, “but I want you to teach me.” _

_ It’s like a switch was flipped. Cor’s stern face softens into something that makes Gladio think that maybe, maybe, he could be a fun person. “Okay, then, Gladio,” he says, “let’s see that hand of yours. Your strongest one.” _

_ Without hesitation, Gladio sticks out his right hand.  _

_ Cor takes it in his own and locks their fingers together. “Thumb up,” he instructs. “Good. Now, you’re going to try to take me down.” _

_ “I can do it,” Gladio promises him, and he sets about trying his best to reach Cor’s thumb and pin it down. _

_ “You’re strong,” Cor tells him, just barely waving his thumb around and letting himself be pinned briefly before he gently tugs his thumb away. _

_ Gladio puffs out his chest as much as he can. “This is gonna be my sword hand,” he brags, “when I’m Shield of the King.” _

_ “Is that so?” Cor asks. His eyes flick up towards Regis. “I’m sure His Majesty has something to say about that.” _

_ Regis chuckles. “The boy has plenty of enthusiasm, at least. But I’ve got time left in me yet.” _

_ Clarus makes a noncommittal sound but says nothing. _

_ “Have you considered letting the boys interact more? Perhaps a few outings together.” Regis eyes Gladio a bit. “I can arrange to have Gladio come and play at the Citadel.” _

_ “Doesn’t Noctis already have a friend?” Clarus asks. “That Scientia boy?” _

_ Gladio wrinkles his nose. “Ignis is boring,” he complains, dodging Cor’s attack clumsily. “He doesn’t like to play outside.” _

_ “Gladiolus,” Clarus warns. He casts a despairing look over at Regis. “Do you see what I have to deal with?” _

_ Regis throws his hands up in exasperation. “I have a son as well, Clarus,” he points out. _

_ “You’re lucky you don’t have kids,” Clarus tells Cor solemnly. “You’d be much more sympathetic.” _

_ Cor grins. “Lucky I don’t, then.” _

_ “Imagine if we gave Cor a kid,” Regis sighs. “Maybe then he’d stop giving us heart attacks every other day.” He shakes his head in Cor’s general direction. “You’re a menace, Cor.” _

_ “We can’t just pluck a child from the armiger, Regis.” _

_ “No,” Regis muses. “But there was that one child. The Niflheim mission?” _

_ Cor goes quiet, and his thumb stills. “Last I heard,” he says quietly, “he was put in the care of some engineers. Out towards the outskirts.” _

_ “I won!” Gladio crows. _

_ For a moment, they’re all silent. Gladio’s too young to notice, but none of them are smiling anymore. _

_ Then Cor blinks down at their hands, and at the way that Gladio’s little thumb has pinned his by the thumbnail. “That you did,” Cor congratulates him warmly. If Gladio was older, he’d see that Cor’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. _

_ “Perhaps it’s time for bed, my champion,” Clarus says, and he gets up from his armchair. He scoops Gladio up from the couch, ignoring his protests. _

_ “Dad, no,” Gladio groans, pounding at his father’s back to no avail. _

_ “I’ll be back,” Clarus promises the two others. _

_ “Goodbye, Cor!” Gladio cries, waving over his father’s shoulder. _

_ Cor waves back, and this time his eyes crinkle a bit at the edges. _

Gladio had almost forgotten that night, and all the ones like it. The quiet snippets of humanity that had lived in his living room, bringing some quiet joy to the lives of men who knew that one day, they’d be sending their children to certain death.

They’re Cor’s memories too, though; Gladio wonders if he cherishes them in a hoard in the private part of his mind like Gladio does.

But those nights are long gone.

Something in Cor’s gaze, though, tells Gladio he hasn’t forgotten them either.

“Did you take anything with you?” Gladio asks. He can already think of a few things that Cor would take as keepsakes.

“Something of your father’s,” Cor admits, and there’s lightning in his eyes. “From our travels in Accordo during the war. And a few files I’d been searching for.” He doesn’t elaborate on what they were.

Gladio knows that Cor would seek tokens of adventures long past. After all, that’s what Gladio himself had done when he’d gone home, right? The files, though, remain a mystery to him. Some secrets of Cor’s, it seems, would always be so.

“Thought you weren’t one for material possessions.”

Cor scoffs, “Who told you that?”

“A mutual friend,” Gladio tells him. “Lives down by the Crag.”

“That so?” Cor muses, and a faint hint of amusement crosses his face, clearing the air of the quiet thoughtfulness of their recollection. “Come on, Prompto,” he continues, gently laying his palm across Prompto’s back. “We’d best be off. I’d like to think Gladio would be happy to join us.”

“Headed to the meeting?” Gladio asks. He tucks Prompto’s photo into his suit’s breast pocket.

Prompto nods. “You know it.” 

“Dressed for the occasion?”

This time, a blush colors Prompto’s cheeks. He is, shockingly, wearing something Crownsguard-formal. It’s not Council wear, or at least not what would pass for Council garb in old Lucis, but it’s a suit, at least.

“Ignis insisted,” Prompto explains, and the redness in his cheeks is obscuring some of his pale scarlet veins. “Cor helped.”

“Looks good,” Gladio assures him. “Come on.”

The three of them begin walking again at a decent enough pace, heading slowly towards the Council chamber. Gladio tries his best not to go too slowly for Prompto’s sake; he knows that that’d only make Prompto get quiet and withdrawn again. After all, that’s how he’d feel. 

Prompto only stumbles once, and even then, Cor is there with the same prepared quickness with which he draws his katana, steadying Prompto without smothering him. “Quite good,” he praises. “You’ve never made it quite that far before.”

“I know,” Prompto says, face flushed with excitement and maybe a touch of embarrassment. “It’s working.”

“ _ You’re  _ working,” Cor corrects. “Don’t forget that.”

“Yes, sir - Cor.”

They keep walking.

Prompto attempts some small talk, complaining about the cold, but they all seem to know that this is a quiet time. They each lapse into their thoughts, probably about the coming meeting. Gladio knows that’s what he’s thinking about. The rising knot in his chest is indicative of as much.

And here they are, at the gilded black doors to the Council chamber.

He knows these doors. They’ve always held the same poisonous allure to him, and the same oppressive weight of the future. He’s always been destined to be in a room like this one. He’s been through these doors enough to dread what’s inside. The memories, and the lingering embarrassment of feeling painfully out of place.

But he pushes those thoughts aside and channels his nerves into his hands and feet, using them to push the doors open and walk into the Council chamber.

Only two people are in here so far, and that alone makes Gladio breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t know if he’d have been able to take the pressure of all the eyes. Looking. Looking at him, watching.

Instead, they’re familiar faces.

There’s Noctis, uncomfortably standing behind the chair at the head of the table, leaning over its back as support. He’s in a black suit as well, embellished with flecks of gold thread on the shirt. Huh. He’s even wearing a jacket. That’s a change.

Ignis is wearing a suit as well. He’s never been one for the Lucian gold, as far as Gladio can remember, but he’s wearing it today in the form of subtle chains that loop along his upper arms from his shoulders, giving him a delightfully imposing look without sacrificing his elegance. He hears Gladio, Prompto, and Cor come in and turns to greet them, eye glittering pale silver-gray from behind his visor. 

“Three of you?” he questions, tilting his head to the side as if it’ll help him hear better. “Gladio, of course. And that’s Prompto’s crutch. Cor?”

“You’re good, Ignis,” Cor says. “Good to see you.”

“And you as well,” Ignis replies, and there’s a smile in his voice that’s a little proud. “Prompto, it’s good to hear you around. Walking as well, if I’m not wrong.”

Prompto assures him, “You never are.”

“And Gladio. Good to have you here.”

Gladio nods and cranes his neck up, searching the high-up rafters of the chamber. “Familiar place, huh?” he says. “Never thought we’d make it here, huh, Iggy?”

“It seems that fate has brought us here anyway,” Ignis replies with that wry warmth in his voice.

“You’re wearing a shirt for once,” Noct observes, resting his chin on his arms where they’re crossed over the chair. “Wow.”

Gladio’s tempted to flip him off, but he figures that that’s not exactly Council decorum, especially when it comes to his king. Instead, he smirks and asks, “Disappointed, princess?”

“You wish,” Noctis throws back with a wolfish grin.

The door opens again, and trouble stalks in.

He’d expected this. Ignis had  _ told _ him. He’s known for ages. That doesn’t stop the annoyance he immediately feels upon making eye contact with Aranea Highwind.

“Highwind,” he grunts.

“Muscles,” she responds in kind, looking decidedly amused. She scans him up and down, totally unsubtly. “You ever gonna cut that hair?”

“My hair is fine,” he retorts, knowing full well that it’s not.

“If that’s what they call fine here in the Crown City, who am I to judge?” She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

“Did you want something?” Gladio growls, just on the edge of politeness.

Aranea raises her hands in a little gesture of surrender. “Burying the hatchet, as it were. If we’re going to be coworkers…”

“I’ve got a lot of coworkers,” Gladio tells her. “I don’t invite all of them over for tea.”

And okay, maybe Gladio’s being more than a little petty, but he’s allowed his little biases and grudges, right? He just doesn’t like her attitude, is all.

Aranea opens her mouth to say something else, but that’s when Ignis makes his appearance, pushing into Gladio in a not-so-subtle way. “Aranea,” he greets her smoothly. “Thank you for joining us.”

“Thanks for hiring me,” Aranea replies, immediately more genuine.

“If you think you’re getting paid for this…” Ignis starts.

“Please,” Aranea scoffs, and she strides further into the room, running her finger along the tops of the chairs she passes. “Government work is low reward. I’m aware.” She turns back and grins. “Besides, the public’s admiration is payment enough.”

“Charming as ever, Aranea,” Ignis tells her. He nods briefly to her and saunters away. “Don’t you agree, Gladiolus?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Charming,” Gladio agrees, and he brushes past her on his way towards his seat.

It’s not even her flippant attitude that annoys Gladio the most. If anything, that’s the part he likes about her. The problem, though, is that Gladio knows it’s all a front. He’s seen her in glimpses during the Night, and he’s seen what she’s like when she feels safe. He’s seen her fear when one of her men doesn’t come back from a mission, and the softness in her eyes when she sees Prompto for the first time in months.

He’d thought that maybe she’d carry that vulnerability back into the sunlight.

He used to think that the Citadel was the place where armor could come off and people could feel like they could be themselves. Now, after the rising of the sun, he’s not so sure.

“Have a seat,” Ignis announces, voice echoing through the large Council chamber.

Noctis ends up at the head of the table, with Ignis and then Prompto on his right. Gladio’s on his immediate left, followed by Cor and Aranea. It seems like a good enough configuration to Gladio.

“So,” Ignis says without much preamble. “I assume we all know why we’re here.”

“Not much of an ‘all’, if I’m being honest,” Aranea drawls. “There’s, what, six of us here?”

Gladio rolls his eyes.

Ignis drums his fingers on the table, frowning over at Aranea. “There would, under normal conditions, be three more of us. Unfortunately, there are extenuating circumstances that are keeping these Council members away from the meeting today. They’re all in Cleigne, as luck would have it.”

“Well, nine’s certainly a crowd.”

“Preferable to six, I’m sure.” Ignis looks towards Noctis. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are,” Noctis says immediately, sitting back in his chair. His posture is straight, though, and the hawkish look in his eyes reminds Gladio of the old king.

“Allow me to begin the introductions, then,” Ignis says, “so that we can get this meeting underway.” He reaches for his papers and rests his fingers on the first sheet, reading the words he’s prepared for this very purpose. It’s incredibly familiar, if a little altered from times long past.

Gladio’s been to too many of these meetings. He remembers sitting beside Ignis, wearing stiff, miserable clothes in the stale, miserable air of the silent, miserable Council room. He remembers Ignis, eager and taking notes and so at home in this cold, impersonal chamber. He remembers the first time Ignis spoke up, offering a suggestion to a Council member whose name is now lost to Gladio’s memories. But what isn’t lost is the look of surprise and pride on King Regis’s face, and the way Ignis had glowed under his praise.

Gladio was never so eloquent, and not half as bold when it came to speaking out among the people who ruled his nation. When he’d been younger, he’d thought that he would be good enough for these meetings; he’d quickly learned that his love of fiction was something none of the Council valued, and that his own brand of quiet intelligence and street smarts were unwelcome in the chamber full of black and gold and protocol. He knows that his father had expected so much more of him at those meetings. The duty of the King’s Shield, after all, went beyond the sword and shield and the heat of battle. Gladio knows that these meetings have always carried with them the threat of disappointment and the crushing weight of expectation.

But he also knows that this has to happen, if they’re to reclaim any part of what they had been.

Besides, it seems like they’ve always been destined to end up here. It seems right to sit in this seat; right to be sitting beside his king, hearing Ignis’s voice fill the hall where their fathers had once held court.

“We have King Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV - the king of Lucis, of course.”

“Do we really need the titles?” Noctis asks, ducking his head. “I’m not even wearing the crown. Hell, I’m not even officially coronated yet.”

Ignis tilts his head in Noct’s direction. “It’s for the recording, Noct,” he says quietly.

Gladio knows that’s bullshit. Ignis just likes calling Noct by his title. He doesn’t say anything, though, because he’s not about to be that guy, especially not in the Council meeting. He knows how much this means to Ignis.

Noct pauses and almost looks like he’s about to say something, but then his gaze shifts to look at the expression on Ignis’s face. He must notice the strained, eager lines that Ignis tries so hard to mask under his visor and careful composure; they’ve all known him long enough to see the person Ignis tries so hard to hide. Noct’s mouth closes slowly, and his eyes soften into a more dormant, shifting duet of scarlet and steel. A half-smile grows on his lips instead, but none of them comment on it.

“Gladiolus Amicitia, Shield of the King,” Ignis continues, nodding at Gladio across the table. 

Something in his head says  _ sword,  _ but he ignores it. Gladio gives a little nod and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. Aranea notices it and smirks at him across Cor.

Gladio hates her.

“Cor Leonis, Marshal of the Crownsguard and defender of Insomnia.”

Beside Gladio, Cor lifts his fist a bit from the table in an informal salute.

“Prompto Argentum, Chief of Accounts and Figures.”

Prompto giggles. “More like  _ dis _ figures.”

Ignis stops and blinks, slowly turning his head until he’s looking at Prompto. “Beg pardon?” he asks, enunciating every syllable in the way that Gladio just  _ knows _ means that he did indeed hear what Prompto just said, but that he is wondering if Prompto is really daring enough to say it again.

“Get it?” Prompto says. “Because, uh. No leg. Disfigured.”

Cor puts his head in his hands.

“I get it, Prompto,” Noct offers with a lopsided grin.

Prompto smiles back, mischievous and knowing. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Prompto,” Ignis says slowly, “have you been planning that for-”

“The whole time? Since you told me that was my name, yeah.”

Ignis heaves a long-suffering sigh and returns to his paper.

“Aranea Highwind, Chief of Emergency Services.”

“Where’s the fire?” Aranea asks, grinning.

Gladio almost says  _ Tenebrae _ , but he figures that that might still be a sore spot.

“Other Council members not in attendance: Iris Amicitia, Shield of Lucis; David Auburnbrie, Head Hunter; and Holly Teulle, Lestallum Mayor. They will all receive a copy of this briefing for their convenience.” Ignis frowns down at his paper, then looks up and swivels his head so that he gets all of them at least roughly in his field of view. “Shall we begin with the briefing, then?”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Noctis asks with a faint grin.

Ignis sits back in his chair, brow furrowed. “Am I?” he asks with a genuine hint of distress. He runs his fingers along his paper again.

“Yourself, Iggy,” Gladio reminds him.

“Oh.” Ignis blinks so visibly that Gladio can see it through his visor. “Oh, of course.” He clears his throat - a clear sign that he’s rattled. “Yes, well. Ignis Scientia, Chamberlain to the King.”

“I’m sure you’re more than that,” Prompto protests.

Ignis, for the first time that Gladio can remember, goes bright red. “I’m sorry?” he asks tightly.

Prompto raises an eyebrow. “You do more than just manage stuff for Noct. You’re organizing practically the entire relief effort and the restoration of the Citadel, right? Don’t sell yourself short, man.”

“Right,” Ignis says, looking a striking combination of relieved and mortified. He clears his throat again, a little more insistently.

Noct raises a lazy eyebrow but doesn’t say a word.

“First order of business,” Gladio says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table, “since nobody tells me anything. Where’s Iris?”

Ignis’s expression shifts into a faint grimace. “I’m sorry, Gladio,” he says. “Iris is still out in Cleigne. That’s why Dave couldn’t come either. She was on her way in from Accordo when Dave asked for her help on rooting out sahagins by Meldacio. There’s a ton of them out there, apparently.”

“It’s true,” Prompto pipes up. When all eyes turn to him, he shrinks a little and says, “What? It is. They didn’t need sunlight to hunt for fish and algae, and a ton of them evaded the Scourge. Their numbers are off the charts.”

“Look at you,” Aranea drawls, but it’s not malicious. It’s just her voice. Gladio still hates it. “Blondie’s a numbers guy now.” She grins at Prompto’s ensuing blush.

Gladio rolls his eyes. “Why is Cor here and not her?”

Cor frowns.

Gladio shrugs. “Cor was abroad in Niflheim with Iris, but he came right home. I just want to know what gives.”

Ignis winces. “Cor is the appointed head of the Crownsguard, Gladio. His place is in the Crown City. Iris prefers to stay abroad and aid the efforts there. Aranea is usually out there with her, but one of her relief missions happened to bring her into Insomnia.”

Gladio sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “Convenient,” he mutters. He’s being petty and rude, and he knows it, but really he just- 

He just misses Iris. A lot.

“Gladio,” Cor says, turning in his chair to look at Gladio head-on. “I understand that it comes off as being incredibly unfair. I know you miss your sister.”

“Damn right.”

“But I also know that you know that her duty binds her to where she needs to be, just as yours keeps you with the king.”

Gladio frowns and meets Cor’s gaze at last, trying his hardest not to fidget under the intensity of it. “Right,” he mutters again. “I know.”

“I know you do.”

The quiet acceptance in Cor’s voice, and the utter lack of frustration or anger, is what drains the tension and the fight from Gladio’s shoulders. He slumps a bit. “I know,” he repeats. He stares down at the table for a moment, trying to muster up his voice again, then he says roughly, “Ignis, sorry for interrupting.”

“Not a problem,” Ignis replies smoothly. “We have plenty of time.”

“The first order of business?” Noctis prompts.

“Ah. My thanks, Noct.” Ignis consults his papers. “Yes. The Crownsguard. Cor?”

Cor nods. “The recruitment process has gone quite well. We’ve had a lot of people sign up; the oldest have been past fifty.” He gives a soft chuckle, self-deprecating and a departure from his old sternness. “Suppose I can’t blame them, being as I am.”

It’s odd, though. Even though Gladio can see the silver streaks in Cor’s hair, he’s never thought of him as anything close to mortal. After seeing the effects that magic and grief had had on his father and the king, it’s shocking to see Cor so unaffected by comparison. Only his unfathomable eyes betray the true weight of his age and experience.

“How many?” Noctis asks.

“Enough to staff the whole city. Unfortunately, not all of them will make the cut. We’ve got young ones, and inexperienced ones, and the worst of all as well.”

“What would those be?” Prompto asks, frowning.

“The heroes,” Cor says, sighing. “Or the ones who like to think they are.”

“Reckless ones,” Gladio adds quietly. “The ones who’d want nothing more than to die in a blaze of glory. Like in the stories. Like their king.”

Cor fixes him with a curious look. “You know of them.”

“I was one of them,” Gladio snorts. “And besides, I’ve heard the stories. Where do you think those kids get those delusions of grandeur, thinking that they could be the next prodigy? The next Immortal?”

Something inscrutable and almost amused passes across Cor’s face. “You’re right,” he admits.

Noct’s soft voice cuts through the odd tension between them. “And what are you going to do about these kids?” A wry smile touches his lips. “I hope you’ll put them in their place.”

“You’re welcome to watch me do it, sir,” Cor offers.

“I would,” Noctis agrees, “if you’d stop calling me sir.”

“You could help, you know,” Cor offers, turning back to Gladio. “I know that the recruits are dying for a chance to spar against His Majesty’s legendary Shield.”

In Cor’s eyes, Gladio can see an apology for an offense he never truly committed. So Gladio nods. “I’ll be there,” he promises. “Just give me a date and time.”

A resolution, then. A peace.

Cor’s danger-bright eyes crinkle into a smile, even if his face remains solemn. It reminds Gladio of thumb wrestling past bedtime. “Be ready,” he warns. “We won’t go easy on you.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Ignis hums his approval, bringing their attention back to the table at large. “We need to discuss the progress of our rebuilding efforts in Insomnia and greater Lucis. And the world at large, of course, but our focus is here.” Ignis checks a line on his paper. “There’s been a preliminary expedition to Altissia to see what can be done with the ruins of the city. There are some deeper caves behind the waterfalls that hosted survivors for years on bioluminescent plants and cave-dwelling animals, if you’ll believe it. They also had the technology for deep sea fishing and diving.”

“I can’t believe that,” Gladio murmurs, rubbing at his jaw. “To think that they were able to survive in the dark like that.”

“You wouldn’t believe the pockets of civilization that have popped up in the ten years of the Night,” Cor says. “I’ve found people in places I never thought could have existed. So many cave dwellers, of course, though they had to have some sort of light source. Many people on the Niflheim coast ran on hydroelectric power and made their stands in cities there. The same goes for Accordo.”

“Not to mention the bunkers,” Aranea snorts.

“Really?” Noctis asks, leaning forward in his chair. 

“It was a war zone; of course they’d have bunkers. Stocked up well enough, and those that could tried to brave the wilds for hunting when supplies ran low. There were enough non perishables in those bunkers for armies to live for at least a year or two, so they supported small groups well enough.”

“What, there weren’t any armies to go there?” Noctis scoffs.

Aranea shrugs. “Most of the Nifs were MTs by the end, and there certainly weren’t many people escaping Gralea.”

“We did see that firsthand,” Ignis muses.

“We did,” Prompto says quietly. “There was hardly anyone left within miles of the city. Just us.”

Aranea gives him a sidelong glance that Gladio just barely catches out of the corner of his eye. “Just us,” she agrees, “and a few familiar faces.”

The conversation lulls and quiets for a moment as all of them try to make sense of the second conversation going on between Prompto and Aranea. Cor seems to understand to a degree, though, and Gladio knows that he, Ignis, and Noctis have heard a good amount of the story. Maybe they just won’t ever know.

“I say we look at ways to get out of this building,” Cor says to break their silence, brow furrowing around a growing thought. “It will help the public if they know we’re doing our part.”

“As if they don’t already know that!” Prompto scoffs. “We’ve been by their sides for ten years.”

“But not me,” Noctis points out.

“And not anymore,” Gladio adds. “We’ve stuck to the Citadel for months, fixing the infrastructure and delegating the work to other people.  _ Our  _ people. And the people haven’t seen Noct in two months.”

Ignis nods slowly, and his lips quirk into quiet approval. “Indeed. We need to show the public we have not abandoned them.” He looks towards Cor. “What did you have in mind?”

“The most public faces thus far have been our Council members in Cleigne, and my own. Aranea has done her part, of course-” he nods to her, and she inclines her head in acknowledgement- “but her job keeps her in the skies or in danger zones. We need to mobilize every Council member in some way to ensure that we display a united and responsible front.” He looks at Noctis. “What do you think, Your Majesty?”

“I-” Noctis frowns. “Just Noctis, Cor. Come on. Take your own advice.” When Cor nods to indicate his apology, Noct scrubs a hand across his face and continues. “Listen. I know we haven’t done as much as we could have. We had a rough start for sure. I can take the blame for a lot of that-”

“We wouldn’t have had a start at all without you,” Gladio points out. Noct keeps doing this, and he hates it. He hates that Noctis still feels like a burden, like a mistake, like something out of place.

Noctis’s sunset gaze shifts to fall on him. “You’re right,” he admits. “But we’ve been focused too long on recovering internally that we’ve forgotten about the world outside. They need us, Gladio. And I want to help.”

Not for the first time, Gladio marvels at how much of a king Noctis has become.

“We certainly can arrange that,” Ignis says, and his attention is on Noctis as well. It seems that Gladio’s awe is contagious; his gaze, sightless as it is, has a sort of laser-focused intensity to it, drawn to Noct by a power none of them can name. “Each of us - a job. Yes. Each of us should have a designated job, or at least a plan.”

“I’ll stick to the Crownsguard and the general relief efforts,” Cor says. “There’s work to be done yet if we want to make this city safe.”

Ignis nods. “Very well. And Aranea, your duties will continue as planned.”

Aranea hums her agreement. “Although,” she muses, “nothing’s ever planned when you’re working emergencies, hm?”

“Indeed.” Ignis looks over at Gladio. “And you, Gladio?”

Gladio shrugs. “Training? Patrolling? I’m wherever you want me.”

“Well,” Ignis says, “that’s all well and good. But what do  _ you _ want?”

“What do I want?” Gladio furrows his brow. “I’m not sure.”

Ignis nods, expression neutral and carefully inscrutable. “Think on it. Prompto? What about you?”

Prompto drums his fingers on the table, casting his eyes to the ceiling as he tries to think. “I want to get out there,” he says. “In the city. I’ve gone on some walks in the past few days, and I have photos, but just that isn’t enough. I want to  _ do _ something.”

“Building?” Ignis suggests. “There are reconstruction efforts in most of the districts by now.”

“Maybe not,” Prompto says, and his eyes flick over to where Cor is sitting. “I was thinking relief efforts. Coordinating food supplies. Settling homes. Stuff like that.”

“Domestic work, then,” Ignis suggests. “With the people.”

“I want to see them firsthand,” Prompto says, nodding. “The survivors. That way, I can document them too.”

“You seem quite insistent about the camera.”

“Wouldn’t you be? Wouldn’t you want to see the evidence that this happened? This is history. One day, when we’re all dead, nobody is going to be alive who was  _ here.  _ Now.” Prompto shrugs, eyes wide and earnest. “You know?”

Ignis taps his finger on the table, deep in thought. “I do,” he replies, and Gladio can hear how impressed he is. “Prompto, you never cease to surprise me.”

“Full of surprises, Iggy. Just say the word.”

Ignis smiles a bit and turns back to the rest of them. “That’s settled, then. I’ll speak to the appropriate personnel to set that up. Or Prompto, feel free to set it up yourself. You have the clearance for it, of course. I, for one, will be focusing my efforts on clearing the city and surrounding areas of predators and other creatures. In the past two months, many have been killed off, but ten years have allowed vermin to breed in the depths of the city. Countless numbers, and they’re bigger than they should be.”

“Hunts?” Noctis asks, surprise coloring his bored tone. “Are you sure?”

“Are you concerned?” Ignis asks calmly, smoothly. “I assure you, I am perfectly able.”

“No, I just-” Noctis makes a helpless gesture, clearly aware that he’s talked himself into a hole here. Gladio doesn’t pity him. “You won’t be around as much.”

“You’re certainly welcome to join me,” Ignis tells him, entirely unruffled, “though your Shield may not approve of me taking you on hunts.”

Prompto snickers, “Don’t worry about Ignis, buddy. He’s terrifying nowadays. He’d fight off a whole horde single handedly if he could get his way.”

Noctis sits back in his chair, studying Ignis in a way that he probably thinks looks casual. “That so?” he muses.

Gladio almost laughs. “He didn’t stop training when you fell asleep for ten years, you know. What you saw of him the last time we fought together is nothing.”

Noctis turns to Gladio, eyes wide and offended. “I didn’t mean I didn’t think he could fight.”

“Quit while you’re ahead,” Aranea advises him solemnly.

Cor shrugs, looking a distinct brand of uncomfortable and amused.

“In any case,” Ignis says, filling their silence with the formality of his voice, “that’s what I will be doing.”

The rest of the meeting continues in much of the same way. Noctis agrees to begin holding audiences with dignitaries at last. With the time that they’ve had since the dawn, enough fragments of shattered nations have come together to begin their own provisional governments once more. Niflheim, Tenebrae, Accordo, Galahd - there are many and more, all clamoring for a chance to gain the Chosen King’s favor.

There’s also the matter of Noct’s coronation, food supply lines, and the possibility of resettling old war-torn lands they’d abandoned in the war. Now that Niflheim isn’t a threat, the world may be able to know peace, at least for a while, free to enjoy the newborn sun.

It’s a nice thought, and hopefully an attainable goal.

Gladio excuses himself as soon as Ignis adjourns the meeting. As much as he enjoyed their company, he can’t stand the creeping feeling along the back of his neck when he sits in the Council chamber.

On his way through the residential hallways, he plucks his phone from his pocket and dials Iris’s number. The past few calls haven’t gone through, but he figures that now that she’s back in Lucis, he might be in luck.

It takes a few rings, but the line suddenly fills with the sound of croaking frogs and falling rain as he’s opening the door to his bedroom.

“Gladdy?”

“That nickname again?” Gladio grumbles, but he can’t help his smile. He tosses his keys down on the first table he encounters and sits down at the edge of his bed, not bothering to turn on the lights.

“Don’t lie,” Iris teases. “You love it.”

Gladio grins. “You’ll never hear me say that out loud.”

“Don’t need to. You’re a terrible liar anyway.”

“When did you stop being a nice sister?”

Iris laughs a bit. “Comes with age. And a healthy bit of fighting experience.”

“I can imagine.”

“Learned from the best.”

“Surprised you picked up.”

Iris sighs. “Better reception in Cleigne, I guess. It’s horrible out past Lucis if you want to get in contact with anyone.”

“How’s Cleigne?”

“Rainy. Cold.” A trace of her old childishness creeps into her voice. “Was never this cold during the Night.”

“Night’s over, little sister,” Gladio reminds her. “Everything’s changing.”

“Is it bad-” Iris stops and gives a nervous little laugh, humorless and anxious. “Is it bad that I miss it?”

He can understand why she’d say that. The Night had been the time when she’d grown into the fighter she is today. Hell, it’d been almost half her life, and certainly the majority of her life as she can remember it. Besides, there had been a simplicity to the Night; a single-minded stretch of time when all that mattered was staying alive. In a way, it’d been easier.

“It’s not,” he assures her. “I know what you mean.” In the Night, it’d been dark enough to hide. It’d been dangerous enough to not have time to think; to feel.

“Can’t be a daemon slayer if there are no daemons to slay,” she murmurs sadly.

“You’ve got a new name. A new purpose, right?” Gladio prods gently. “You’ve had the tattoo since the Night.”

“That’s true.”

“They’re calling you the Shield of Lucis now, huh? Out there in the world?”

Iris laughs, light and bold, all her reservations forgotten. “Only if they want to. It’s a formality to say out loud. I know what I am to them. That’s enough.”

Gladio knows. He’d been with her when she’d gotten her tattoo during the fifth year of the Night. He knows that she has inked her devotion into her skin. He knows that there’s room enough in the world for more than one Amicitia to place themselves in the path of danger if it means defending the greater good.

“And what about you?” Iris asks. “Shield of the King? Mighty hero of the Night?”

“It’s not nearly as fancy as all that,” Gladio scoffs. “Besides, I don’t even use a shield anymore.”

“No shield?” Her voice is sharper now, and concerned. Gladio knows it must sound ridiculous to her. She’s the best in Lucis at fighting hand to hand, and even she carries a shield of black steel strapped across her back. “Don’t you have...well, don’t you have Dad’s?”

He does.

“I can’t,” he says, though. “Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?” she asks. “A sign?”

“I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“I-” Gladio stops; falls silent. “I don’t know what he’d want.”

“Do you have to?”

“I do,” he insists, feeling that knowledge stirring in his gut with the power of instinct. But then Iris’s question, blunt and straightforward, cuts through his awareness. He’d never once questioned that his every action would be to fulfill his father’s great plan, that he would have to be the Amicitia his father always dreamed of molding from the malleable clay of his son. But all at once, Iris has called it into question, slashing through all he’s ever known.

Gods, maybe she was the sword all along.

“Do I?” he asks, lost.

“I don’t know,” Iris says simply. “But I do know that you’re the King’s Shield now. Not him. And you have everything you need in Insomnia.”

“I don’t have you.”

“You never needed me to be a person,” Iris scoffs. “And you never needed Noctis. Being a Shield, though - that’s a two way street. You and the person you’d die for.”

“You’d die for the whole of Lucis?”

“Maybe,” she admits. “The king did it. Why not me?”

“I can think of a few reasons.”

“Well.” She snorts a bit. “Dad raised us to be selfless.”

“Didn’t you just tell me not to care what he told us to do?”

“But you know that Noctis wants you as his Shield.”

“I swore an oath.”

“You did. That’s the hard part. Now you need to figure out what kind of Shield you’ll be.”

Gladio stares at his ceiling. “How do I figure that out?”

“You just have to ask yourself: what do  _ you _ want?”

“I want…” He trails off. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to. Not now. Not yet.”

“You’re my little sister,” Gladio half-chuckles, hoping that the laugh will cover the crackling of the tears in his throat. “I’m supposed to be the one to give you advice.”

“I can be here for you too.” Iris sighs, sending soft static down the line towards him. It’s a comforting sound, like she’s a little girl beside him again, breathing in his ear while they share the bed during a thunderstorm.

Gods, he misses her.

“When?” he asks brokenly, softly.

“Soon,” Iris promises. “Soon.”

“I love you,” he tells her, because he means it. He knows it with the absolute surety he reserves only for his family and his king.

“I love you, too,” she swears. “I’ll be home soon.”

“Soon,” he echoes. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

And then she’s gone, leaving Gladio to hold a phone that only whispers white noise into his ear.

He puts the phone down when he can’t stand the almost-silence, letting the fading sunlight cast stark shadows and blinding orange light across the room. It’s quiet in the absence of Iris’s voice. It’s always been quiet in the Citadel, and lonely.

_ What do you want?  _ Iris’s voice whispers in the secret part of his mind where he’s tried to compartmentalize every doubt and insecurity.

He’s been avoiding the question for so long.

He reaches into his breast pocket and tugs out the photo that Prompto had given to him. It looks even more incorporeal in the dramatic half-light of the sunset in his darkening room, casting shadows over the shadows and tinting the sunlit stone a gentle amber. His house looks beautiful.

And it’s his, if he wants it.

What does he want?

_ I want to be there for him. _

It’s a simple enough sentiment. It’s one he’s always known, ever since Noctis had taken the fall from his father and found Iris when she was young and reckless and in danger. From that moment, he’d known that this kid he’d been stuck with was going to be his king one day. Until then, and even after that, Gladio was determined to always be his friend.

Is it enough to be by his side, and to protect him, and just to be  _ Gladio? _

He thinks again of his father’s disappointment in the Council room during his younger years, and the praise that slowly shifted into criticism with every year. Never quite enough for his father, who had known on some level that Gladio was destined to be the most important Shield of them all, protecting the True King of Lucis.

And all of that...it’d made Gladio think he’d failed. That he wasn’t the Shield he should have been.

But he still has a king. He’s stood by him all this time, into darkness and the new dawn and through into the day.

He doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. He doesn’t plan on changing himself to be someone else’s idea of a Shield.

“I swore an oath,” he says aloud. “I’m an Amicitia.” His sleeves are covering the dark lines of his tattoo, but he knows that the eagle is there, marking him for a greater purpose. 

He might have been born into this life, but he can still choose to be the Shield he wants to be.

It’s that conviction that brings him to the wardrobe by the door. Its magnetic attraction is stronger than ever, whispering to him with suggestions of fate; yes, this is the wind at his back. This is the jump into  _ now. _

Gladio touches the handle, running his thumb over it for a moment. He almost turns away. He almost goes back to bed.

Not this time.

The wardrobe swings open easily enough, releasing the scent of his father’s cologne to the cool evening air.

His father’s shield sits inside.

He picks it up.

It’s heavier than he’d thought it would be, and the leather of the strap is cracked with age and dryness. But the gilding and the steel are intact, casting muted daggers of light across his bedroom in the suggestion of feathers. 

Despite the weight, it feels right. He shifts his grip, and-

_ I’d almost forgotten- _

It’s wonderful.

He can’t believe that-

_ I ever thought that a sword would be enough. _

How can it be, when holding a shield feels like home?

He’s more than a sword. A shield. He’s a shield. 

He’s a shield.

Gladio stares at himself in the mirror. He looks miserable and worn and tired, but there’s something in the eyes he sees. Something hopeful. With the shield in his hands, he certainly looks like he has hope.

Perhaps not the robes today. That’s something for tomorrow. Somehow, it’s enough to see himself in his new Council suit, holding his father’s shield.

He likes what he sees, and he smiles.


	20. noctis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recognition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big chapter incoming! Figured I'd get this one out to you guys before I dive fully into my midterm studying. Enjoy!

Winter in Insomnia had always been Noct’s favorite season.

He doesn’t mind the cold as much. Everyone can feel it now, and the chill brings a flush to his cheeks instead of just making him feel numb. Now, when frost creeps across his window, he doesn’t fear it.

Things are...getting better. They’re not great, of course. There’s always something sitting below the surface of his waking thoughts, whispering poison into his awareness. It tells him to hate those who have torn him from the bliss of paradise. It tells him that he will always share blood with the man who destroyed him; that his burns and the fire in his veins will keep him from ever knowing peace.

It’s a convincing voice.

But he ignores it, most of the time. It’s easy to know its words are poison when he spars with Gladio or jokes with Prompto or lets Ignis read reports aloud in their office. It’s easy to look to the sun and feel proud that he, for a burning heartbeat, was bright enough to lend it new light. It’s easy to look in the mirror and see his father and the Lucii and not the king the astrals barred from ascension.

He’s started holding court in the throne room again, but he doesn’t sit on the throne. It just doesn’t feel right, not with the way that his blood has seeped into the red softness there, staining it to an ugly brown. Ignis has been promising to get people to fix it, but he hasn’t really cared about that, honestly. And he’s not even officially king yet, though Ignis is making plans for that as well. So he has set up a chair at the foot of the grand staircase, and from there he’s started the slow process of welcoming the heads of shattered nations. The chair is his father’s; he’s sure of it. It’s the one that he’d sat in during the treaty negotiations with Niflheim, if he remembers the recordings correctly. It feels right to reclaim the seat of his father’s power this way.

And it doesn’t hurt that former Niflheim officials recognize it too, and that they squirm when they see him sitting where Regis had been when he’d been betrayed.

But today, he’s not seeing foreign dignitaries.

He’s set aside today for the Lucians he’d once known, especially those who had survived the Citadel attack. They’re few and far between, and after the Night there are even fewer of them, but Lucians are nothing if not hardy. He’s already seen Monica and Dustin, and he’s given Cor complete control of the defense of Insomnia, of course. But he wants to see the people he knows best. The people who have shirked the cold hallways of the Citadel to live in more familiar places.

That’s where Talcott comes in.

Talcott gives him something like a bow - half remembered from his childhood with the Amicitias, surely - and announces, “Lady Iris Amicitia to see you, Your Majesty.”

Noctis smiles. “Thank you, Talcott. Send her in.”

Talcott hurries back and knocks twice on the doorjamb at the threshold of the throne room. That’s probably not official protocol, but Noctis can’t really be bothered to care about that. The large doors swing open with only minimal scraping along the ground, and in strides a young woman of no older than twenty five with a look on her face that only means danger.

Iris looks different.

Noct wishes he had seen her when the world was still ruined. She must have been in her element then, and he can see that in the proud line of her shoulders. She looks uncomfortable in the Citadel in a way that she never did before the fall of Insomnia, like she’d gotten a taste of the outside air and never wanted to go back indoors. Of course she’s older, and that shows in the haunted look in her eyes and the pale scars which shine in stark relief across her skin. There’s one in particular visible on her shoulder, just above her heart: it’s a large, knotted mass of paleness over the muscles he can see there.

She must catch his gaze, because she shrugs halfheartedly and explains, in a voice far rougher and mature than it was when Noctis last heard her, “It was a yojimbo. I went in too quickly, and it skewered me straight through.” She offers him a bright smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and he quirks one side of his lips up in return. “But I’m fine, see?”

“Clearly,” Noctis replies. “Iris, you’ve grown up.”

Iris snorts. “Sort of happens after ten years.” Her hair is still chopped short like it used to be, but she’s wearing more black now, all comfortable leather and imposing chains like what her brother used to wear. She has the easy grace of a predator, now, even more deadly than Gladio but twice as skittish in the Citadel. Her gaze softens after a moment, though, and Noct thinks he glimpses the girl she’d once been. “It’s good to see you again, Noctis.”

Noctis stands from his chair then, and he holds out his arms. “Let’s not pretend that we don’t want to,” he says, and Iris’s eyes gleam with mischief and tears. She rushes into his arms and folds herself in there like she’d done for years, ever since Noctis had found her vulnerable and cold in the middle of a forest. They’re both holding on to each other with a little more fierceness than necessary, but Noct can’t help himself. He inhales Iris’s scent, all iron and smoke and nothing like the cinnamon and flowers she’d surrounded herself with at Caem. She’s not the kid sister he’d sort of shared with Gladio anymore, but Noctis loves her all the same.

“Thought you’d be too uptight for this sort of thing,” Iris jokes wetly into his shoulder. She’s taller than him now, of course. Seems to be an Amicitia thing.

“I thought you were the smarter one in your family, Iris,” Noctis retorts, but there’s no real heat there, only affection and relief.

She pulls back and smiles, creasing lines beside her eyes. “You think you know a guy,” she says. “And then-”

“Ten years?” Noctis guesses.

Iris snorts. “Ten years. It’s been a while.”

If anyone’s going to say it, he will. “I missed you, Iris.”

She smiles. “I missed you, too.”

“More than you know.”

“Not going to cry?” she asks, running a finger along the corner of her eye. “Don’t tell me that I’m going to be the sappy one here.”

“Not my style,” Noctis tells her, grinning.

“Come on,” she urges. “Can the king not admit weakness?”

“Not the king yet,” he points out. “Not officially, at least.”

Iris barks out a laugh. “Please. If you weren’t the king when Insomnia fell, you absolutely were when you saved us all. That’s all the ceremony we need, if I have anything to say about it.” She pauses and then raises an eyebrow, looking at him closely. “What _did_ happen?”

“Hasn’t Gladio told you?”

“Do you honestly think Gladio would be the type to talk about that on the phone?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Haven’t I waited long enough?”

Noct mirrors her eyebrows with his own, hoping that it masks whatever he can feel rising from his gut. “I died,” he says simply, “and then Ignis brought me back.” Gone is the once-familiar bubble of resentment at those words. Now, all he feels is the gentle warmth of relief, and something flutters in his heart that he doesn’t quite recognize.

Iris doesn’t seem to have been expecting that. Noctis can’t blame her. She takes a step back. “You died,” she repeats slowly.

“I died.” He almost wants to pull up his shirt to show her the scar. Or his sleeves, to show her how he’d almost done it again. But he doesn’t, and instead he just tells her, “And then Ignis used a phoenix down on me.”

“A phoenix down? Are you sure you weren’t just knocked out?”

Noct bites down on the inside of his cheek, gnawing at it thoughtfully. “No,” he says. “No, I was definitely...elsewhere.” He thinks of Luna’s bright eyes and his father, young and whole again, and he grimaces against his will.

“And Ignis-”

“Magic,” Noctis explains. “The gods. Or so they say.”

“And you’re back,” she says with barely concealed wonder.

“But I came back like this.” His lip curls a bit. “Burned.” The soft constant warmth of his scarred arm reminds him of what he’s become; he knows that there’s a disconcerting edge to his gaze now, proof that he’s out of place in the world under the sun.

Iris’s eyes flicker across his face, taking in the sight that he knows must be jarring. He’d expected her to be surprised, but it seems like everyone’s heard the story of the scarred king who burned to bring back the sun, the king of light and death and ashes.

But his old fears rise up at the sight of someone who’d known him before - before everything. Doesn’t Iris see the difference? “I don’t think the people would want some sort of half-daemon leading them.” When he blinks, he can see the phantom ink-and-violet form of Ravus, shambling toward him and begging for death. He sees the noxious yellow of Ardyn’s eyes in the moments before Noctis had destroyed him.

Iris shakes her head violently. “You killed the daemons, Noctis.”

She’s right. Shiva had told him as much, that first night back in Insomnia. Ignis has told him so too. _I’m not him. I’m not him. I’m not him._ He shoves down the image of Ardyn that swims into clarity in his mind and focuses on anything but that. The sharp needling ache of the cuts on his arms, or the flutter in his heart when he thinks of Ignis telling him _you are less like him than anybody in the world, Noct._

He blinks back into focus and shrugs at Iris. “I suppose.”

“Besides,” Iris says, “the veins mean that you survived.”

_I survived._

Noctis looks at Iris - really looks at her this time. There’s something older and sadder in her eyes, and something wild. Something that belongs in the Night.

“You survived, too,” he says. “You’re here.”

Her lips twist into the shade of a grin. “I’m here,” she agrees.

Noctis opens his mouth to say something more, but he doesn’t get the chance.

The doors fly open, nearly hitting the guards stationed there. Noctis nearly jumps out of his skin, and Iris flinches, and they turn to see what’s caused it all.

And there’s Gladio in the doorway, silhouetted in stark relief, a storm in the quiet formality of the throne room.

“Iris,” is all he says, in a voice that’s low and rough and beautiful.

“Gladio,” Iris murmurs, and then again, loudly and with such wild, relieved joy, “Gladdy!”

And that’s when they both start moving - Iris pulls away from Noctis, springing into motion with the fluid grace of a predator, and Gladio rushes forward like a storm or a meteor or a brother seeing his sister in the sunlight for the first time.

And when they collide-

Nothing, Noctis thinks, is more powerful than the force of the Amicitias.

Gladio holds Iris so closely that Noctis can hardly tell where one sibling ends and the other begins. Every muscle in his arms is tense, clutching at his sister with incredible force. His nose buries in her hair. The two of them are shaking with the force of breaths that might be laughs or sobs - or both.

Gladio pulls back from the embrace, but only just enough so that he can frame her face in his hands, staring down at his little sister. His voice is breathless; exhilarated. “I was downstairs with the recruits. As soon as I heard-”

“And you’re here,” Iris breathes back. “It’s been forever.”

“Nearly a year,” Gladio says. “Longer.” He tugs her back into a tight hug, keeping a hand on the back of her head, holding her close. “I missed you.”

Over Iris’s shoulder, Gladio meets Noct’s eyes with a gaze that is brighter than Noctis has seen it in a long time, burning liquid amber with joy and relief and tears.

Noctis nods, and he smiles. He knows that this is Gladio’s thank you for something neither of them can quite put into words: for bringing the sun back and allowing them to meet like this once more, reunited at last in the city they had all been born in.

And it’s like their little family is reunited. Just the three of them, for a heartbeat.

Gladio quietly moves the two of them off to the side, guiding Iris with a hand on her back, as if he can’t bear to be away from her for a single heartbeat. Noctis doesn’t blame him. The two of them have been apart for long enough.

“Talcott,” Noctis says quietly. Best to give the Amicitias their space.

Talcott walks over from where he’s been waiting by the doors and leans towards Noct’s space. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he asks. It seems that he’s trying to keep from disturbing Gladio and Iris as well.

“Is Cor treating you right?”

Talcott grins and pats at the sword and dagger strapped to his waist. “He sure puts me to work.”

He’s still so young. Seventeen is still younger than Noctis had been when he’d lost everything; hell, Talcott had been only seven when the Night had fallen on the world. He’s lucky that he made it. People raised around the Amicitias, it seems, are made of stronger stuff, and though Noctis wouldn’t wish a childhood in the Night on anyone, he knows that Talcott made the best of the situation.

“Good,” he says, though. “I’m glad.”

“You’ve got others here, too.” Talcott nods his chin over towards the doors. “Outside.”

“Others?”

“Prompto. And Aranea and Miss Cindy. He’s brought them over to say goodbye, remember?”

“Aranea’s heading back already?”

“Duty calls, as she says. And Miss Cindy needs to check on the garage. She’s been here long enough.”

“Hm.” Noctis sits back down in his chair and drums his fingers on the armrest. “Send them in, if they’re in a rush.”

“Sure thing!” Talcott turns on his heel and hurries back over to the doors, letting the guards open them for him. He pokes his head out the door and makes a little beckoning gesture. When he fully reemerges in the throne room, he’s followed by Aranea and Cindy, with Prompto slowly pulling up the rear on his single crutch.

Talcott heads back over to where Gladio and Iris are and elbows Gladio with a grin. Gladio almost startles, but instead he chuckles and tugs Talcott underneath his arm, slinging the arm around his shoulders while he talks to Iris. The three of them make a nice trio; they must have dragged Talcott into their family unit in the wake of Noct’s disappearance and Jared’s death. Noct’s glad for that.

“Hey,” Noctis greets the three newcomers.

They’re all dressed for winter now except Cindy, who’s still in her engineering fatigues. It’s for the best, probably: Cindy swears up and down that Leide is still quite warm in the winter. Noctis will take her word for it; he’s certainly never been out in Lucis during the winter before.

Prompto glances over at where Gladio and Iris are now talking animatedly with Talcott, and he grins a bit. He leans over and whispers something in Aranea’s ear. She grins, nods, and heads over to Noctis.

Well, more like stalks. She’s still terrifying.

“No throne today?” she asks, coming to a halt before his chair. “Not very kingly.”

“I thought that the chair would be enough.”

“You don’t even have a crown yet.”

“I will soon. You were there when we were planning for the coronation.”

Aranea snorts. “And nobody listened to me. You Lucians have too much flair in your ceremonies. Why do you want to use that sword?”

“It’s a Royal Arm, Aranea,” Noctis protests. “The last one. It’s symbolic.”

“Any sword will do, I think. I don’t think Bahamut minds too much.”

“You’re not even religious.”

Aranea shrugs. “Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.”

“Will you be staying?” He wants her to. He really, really wants her to. If only because he likes seeing the way that she and Gladio give each other half-hearted glares and the way that she makes Prompto smile and the way that Ignis’s face lights up at the prospect of exchanging wits with her. He’s missed her, if he’s being honest. She’d always been there for them, and she’s done the world a great service by sticking around.

"Ah." Aranea crosses her arms and gives him a look that speaks of some deeper sadness. "Cities aren't my thing. There's plenty of work to be done out there in the world. Salvage, rescue, rebuilding, you get it." She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. "I've got Biggs and Wedge, though, and the rest of my guys."

“Right.”

“Besides, Ignis’d have a fit if we all stayed in Insomnia. New Lucis is more than just Insomnia, and all that?”

Noctis grins. “You learn quick.”

“I’ll be fine out there. Promise.” She smirks. “Sure you’ll be okay, Your Majesty?”

Noctis shrugs. “I’ve got a few people in my corner still. Besides, the Citadel’s home.” And he really thinks so, too. It’s becoming more than just the miserable husk of a castle where he and his father had met their ends.

“I’m sure,” she tells him. Her eyes flick across the room, settling on where the Amicitias and Talcott are locked in conversation. “Do me a favor, would you?”

“What’s that?”

“Keep an eye on the big guy.” Her gaze flicks back to meet Noct’s.

“Of course.” Noct glances over at Gladio. He looks so much younger right now, and so much happier. “Any reason why?”

“Reminds me of someone I know pretty well.” She folds her arms across her chest and levels him with one of her more cryptic looks. “Suffice to say I have an interest.”

“Sure,” Noctis says with a shrug. “Sure you don’t want me to keep an eye on that one too?”

Aranea turns to follow his gaze; her expression softens into something affectionate. “Ah. That one’s got a whole army of people behind him. But yeah, keep him out of trouble.”

Prompto's locked in conversation with Cindy. He’s rubbing at the back of his neck in some remnant of a nervous tick, and he blushes violently when Cindy drops into a crouch to closely inspect his leg.

“Working properly?” she asks him, fiddling with a bolt at the ankle.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. Working just great. The Immortal - ah, the Marshal - Cor - He helps me. Walk.”

“Is he, now?” Cindy makes a little noise of surprise. “And I thought I’d seen it all.”

“He’s great,” Prompto says.

“Has you taking care of the leg, at least,” Cindy says, and she tugs a screwdriver from her toolbelt and quickly makes an adjustment at the ankle joint. “Gives him a pass in my book.” She squints up at him. “Is he still as grumpy as he used to be?”

“Well. He’s still Cor.”

“Hm. Figures.” She stands and dusts her hands off, slipping the screwdriver back in her belt. “That should work until I get back. Remember that Nils and Astrid and the others are still going to be posted up here if anything drastic happens. But-”

“But it’s your baby,” Prompto finishes, grinning. “I know, Cindy.”

She winks. “You learn quick.” She glances over at Noctis. “Be back in a few weeks. Promise.”

“I hope so,” Noctis says, grinning. “Citadel won’t be half as happy without you here.”

Aranea snorts. “You never said anything nearly as nice to me.”

“I implied it.”

“You’re lucky you have a master diplomat for an assistant, pretty boy,” she tells him, and she pats him lightly on the cheek. “You don’t stand a chance.”

“Thanks.”

Aranea grins, eyes twinkling. “Cindy and I are gonna be outside,” she announces, and she whirls and collects Cindy, linking their arms together. “C’mon.”

Prompto sidles up towards Noct’s chair, leaning on his crutch. “Gimme a second, yeah?” he asks.

“Airships run on a schedule, Blondie.”

“I’m the head of figures. I make the numbers.”

She snorts. “Touché.”

And then she’s gone, sweeping through the doors with Cindy at her side. She’s not even a native Lucian, but she walks through the Citadel like she owns the place. Noctis hopes that one day he can have a fraction of her confidence; her easy grace.

“Isn’t she great?” Prompto sighs, staring across to the hallway beyond the half-ajar doors.

“Aranea? Yeah.” Noctis inspects Prompto’s expression and raises an eyebrow. "Did you-"

Prompto goes immediately red. "No, no! Just a lot of...mutual respect." He glances back at Aranea's retreating form. "We did a few hunts together over the years. Stuff for Cindy, mostly." He catches sight of Noct's raised eyebrow. "And no, not her either. _Lots_ of respect there."

Noct grins. "I'm sure."

"Noct!" Prompto protests, and he throws himself into Noct's vicinity, leaving Noctis no choice but to catch him. He goes boneless in Noct’s arms, sagging so that his crutch drags on the ground. Noct has to struggle to hold him up. “You’re so mean to me,” he whines.

“Aren’t you a grown man?” Noct asks, but he grins anyway and holds onto Prompto, who grips at his shirt front in mock agony.

“Betrayed! Doubted!” Prompto wails, ignoring the odd looks that the guards are giving them.

Noctis shoots them a vaguely apologetic look and shrugs. Comes with the territory. “You’re in _love,_ ” he taunts, drawing out the word until Prompto squirms in his arms.

“C’mon, Noct,” he groans. Then he freezes in Noctis’s arms and then throws himself upright, wobbling a bit on his prosthetic leg. He catches himself on the tip of his crutch, leaning on it for a moment. His bright violet-blue eyes turn mischievous. “Oh, hey,” he ventures.

“No.” He’d seen this a mile away.

“Ignis?” Prompto wheedles, elbowing Noctis violently.

“ _No,_ ” Noctis says firmly. Gods, he’s so glad that Ignis is still in a meeting.

“Don’t think we haven’t noticed you looking at him like a lost puppy-”

“ _You’re_ a lost puppy-”

“And you’re in denial!” Prompto singsongs.

Noctis huffs, “I do not look at him like that.” He rubs at the back of his neck, thankful for the grayness of the skin on his right side; his other cheek feels too warm. He schools his tone into something more moderate and frowns at Prompto. “And it’s none of your business.”

Prompto snorts. “You think you’re being subtle.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noctis tells him. Trust Prompto to come up with things like this in public. In the throne room, no less.

And then he asks, very quietly, “Is it obvious?”

Prompto’s eyes go wide. He makes a little sound that sounds strangled, like he’s holding back a shout that might be _I knew it_ but admirably, he stays quiet. Instead, he just whispers, in a voice that’s so strained by excitement that Noct’s worried he might explode: “ _Dude._ ”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know what.” Noctis makes a desperate hand gesture that’s bordering on profane, ignoring Prompto’s indignant sputtering. “ _That._ ”

“You can’t just _say_ that and expect-”

“You brought it up in the first place,” Noctis argues, “and now I’m done.”

Prompto pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“Aren’t you thirty? Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“The pouting, Prom. C’mon.”

“We’re not done talking about this.”

“We are for now.” To prove his point, he starts prodding Prompto in the direction of the doors.

“Why?”

“Because I’m the king, and I say so.”

“You’re horrible.”

“Yep. Get going,” Noctis tells him. “Those two need a send off, and Aranea’d have a fit if you weren’t there to do it. Not to mention Cindy.” He frowns over across the room. “And take Gladio and Iris while you’re at it. And Talcott. The more Council members, the better, right?”

“Talk about overkill,” Prompto mutters, but he rights himself on his crutch and starts to walk away. Over his shoulder, he calls, “Big guy! Daemon slayer! We’re going!”

Gladio and Iris look up from their quiet conversation; Iris’s lips quirk into a smile. “Prompto!” she exclaims.

“The one and only!” Prompto gestures with the crutch. “C’mon, we’re seeing Aranea and Cindy off. Come join me. You too, Talcott.”

Gladio spares a quick glance over to Noctis. “You good?” he asks.

Noctis waves him off. “Go,” he urges. “I’ll be fine.”

That’s all it takes. Gladio shrugs, then flashes a winning grin at Noctis, breathless and excited. “Suit yourself.”

And then they’re gone, disappearing in a flutter of chatter and laughter.

As the doors swing shut behind them, Noctis can’t help but breathe out a sigh. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy seeing them - he loves them, and seeing Iris after all this time had been incredible - but it’s still draining. He’s never done anything on this level yet. He’s still not used to the idea of being king.

Absently, he reaches out with his right hand, grasping at the air. He hopes against all hope that his father’s sword will materialize in his grip. After all, that’s the only weapon left to him now. Everything, _everything,_ had been lost to the armiger when he’d brought back the dawn. When Gladio and Ignis and Prompto had brought him back to life, they’d taken the last of the Arms with them to Hammerhead and back again to Insomnia, trailing Noct’s death with every step they took with the sword in their hands.

He doesn’t pick it up that often. It sits in his suite upstairs, waiting for him to wield it once more. At least swinging it doesn’t sap him of his strength, trading vitality for power.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still crave the rush of the battle and the knowledge that he’s playing with his own life by swinging his father’s ancestral blade. But the motion doesn’t bring the sword to his hand in a shower of sparks.

It’s just a sword now, and he’s not the king he used to be.

He sighs and lets his fingers close into a loose fist. Maybe he should start training again. Gladio would like that, right? And Prompto’s due to start his weapons training any day now. Maybe he’d like a friend down at the range.

The doors swing open again without any warning, scraping quietly across the floor.

The guards ready their weapons, springing forward and crossing their spears in the path of the intruder, barring his path to the king.

It’s Ignis.

He stops just before he walks into the crossed spears and frowns delicately. “Gentlemen?” he asks calmly.

“State your business,” one of the guards says, voice rich with the tone of someone who’s sure they’re more important than they actually are.

A small smile pulls at the corners of Ignis’s lips. Noct, waiting in his chair, grins.

“Merely a visitor,” Ignis tells them, and Noctis has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

The guard shakes his head with such purpose that his spear rattles against his partner’s. “Can’t let you in without an appointment.”

Ignis blinks. “I wasn’t aware I needed one,” he says. “I fear I’ve stumbled into the wrong place. You’ll have to forgive this blind fool.”

“Well, then, go on your way.”

“With haste,” Ignis promises solemnly. He gives a little half-bow in Noct’s direction, and a secret smile crosses his lips. “Majesty.”

Gods, he can’t take it anymore. Noctis looks from the guards to Ignis and back again. “You guys can go,” he tells the guards.

The guard blinks. “Your Majesty-”

“Trust me.” He jerks his head over to where Ignis is standing. “You know this guy?”

“He’s not important,” the louder guard assures him. He falls silent, then adds, “Your Majesty.”

Noctis grins, and something in the guard’s expression changes, shifting into confusion. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Look again. Do you know this guy?”

The smaller guard, probably no older than twenty, looks again at Ignis, and his eyes widen. He nods hesitantly, face flushing. He must be one of the Hammerhead kids, isolated from Lestallum by miles of darkened roadway.

Noct shrugs. “So you know that I’m not in any danger if he’s around.”

“Your Majesty-”

“And,” Noctis continues, “you know that he’s more of a danger to you if you don’t let him through.”

“Of course,” the smaller guard blurts in a rush. “Our apologies, Master Scientia, sir.”

The louder guard goes even paler, if that’s possible. His lips form soundless words that look a lot like _Master Scientia,_ and if that’s not the most satisfying thing Noctis has seen all day, he doesn’t know what is.

“On your way,” Noctis prods gently.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” the louder guard says, blustering now. He salutes and bows deeply, clutching tightly at his spear. He gives a clumsy, half-aborted bow to Ignis as well. “Sir,” he says, a little choked.

Ignis blinks down at where his voice is coming from, and he smiles his most benevolent, innocent smile.

Oh, he really is going to be the death of Noctis.

“Have a wonderful day,” he bids the guards, and that’s what sends the two of them swiftly through the doors with no shortage of haste.

Incredible.

“Pleasant gentlemen,” Ignis comments delicately once the doors slide shut, striding towards the chair. “They really do need a roster of names. With pictures, preferably.” He tugs a sheaf of papers out of his breast pocket, shuffling through them absently. “Though - is that my job?”

“And you call me a menace,” Noctis snorts, sitting back in the chair.

Ignis smiles. “You could have intervened at any time.”

“And ruin the fun?”

“Ah. An apt point.” Ignis stops a few feet from the chair and tilts his head to the side. “The guards do need better training, though. Security is no good if they hinder the flow of the Citadel’s workers. _Especially_ Council members.”

Noctis makes a helpless noise. This really isn’t his job. “Can you blame us for not having the best help at the moment?” he asks.

“You are the king, Noctis. You need the best security.”

“You’re expecting too much,” Noctis fires back, annoyed.

Ignis frowns, and his lips set into a thin line. “Your safety, and the safety of everyone in this Citadel, is of the utmost priority to me.”

“They survived the Night. We all did.” Noctis drums his fingers on the arm of his chair, seeking solace in the hard tap of his fingernails on the wood. “And I’m a trained fighter, in case you forgot the months we spent on the road.”

“Am I not allowed to still worry?” Ignis asks, a little sharply.

The amusement of just a minute before is gone. Noctis might normally chalk this up to it just being one of his more volatile days, but Ignis is never like this. He’s never been like this. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass,” he mutters.

“I’m not,” Ignis insists. “I merely have your safety as the _king_ in mind. You have an entire nation to worry about now. This is bigger than just you and me and the employees of the Citadel.”

“I know that.”

“Then let me try to make the Citadel a safer place.”

“It’s safe, Ignis. These guys just need training.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“How can I be so sure? Cor trained them, Ignis. They’re just new.”

“Noctis,” Ignis says, and there’s something desperate in the way Noct’s name falls from his lips. “Remember what happened when your father let his guard down.”

_When my father-_

Noctis almost snarls on instinct, almost heeding the ever-present poisonous voice in his head and the wild thrum of ancient magic in his fingers where the Ring of the Lucii had burned its way through his body. But he quells it and settles for the stoniness of a king. This is what his father would have done, right? Not escalate things?

He takes a deep breath, tasting the promise of smoke and fire in his lungs, and exhales coolness. Neutrality. “I’m not going to talk about my father. Not like that. Not for a conversation like this.” He stares up at Ignis, willing all of his frustration into his gaze. He thinks he sees Ignis wilt, just a bit, and he’s irrationally glad for it.

There’s a flash of something in Ignis’s eye, but it’s hidden behind the dark glare of his visor. Noctis hates the visor.

Ignis won’t back down. Not yet. Noctis knows Ignis, and he knows his stubbornness and his pride. Sometimes, that transcends even the skills of his diplomacy, especially where Noctis is concerned. His interactions with Noctis have always been about something further than duty and councils and politeness.

“Do you have a reason for being here?” Noctis asks when Ignis remains silent. “I thought you had a meeting.”

“The meeting is over,” Ignis says tightly. “I have reports for you.”

Noctis stares up at him. “And?”

“Read this,” Ignis tells him, and he shoves a paper towards Noctis with a motion that’s not entirely graceful. It’s forceful and jerky, like anger is controlling his limbs. “It’s important.”

Noctis takes the packet from him and scowls, reading the title.

“Your duty is to read it,” Ignis tells him, voice unbearably neutral.

“I didn’t say anything,” Noctis mutters on the edge of a snarl.

“I know you hate it.”

And Noctis hates that he knows. He hates that Ignis can read him so well without even seeing him. He hates feeling so exposed in this throne room, so vulnerable.

Gods, it’s like the Lucii all over again.

“Get out of my sight,” Noctis orders, and for the first time, it’s a command. To Ignis. To leave.

And Ignis falters. For just a moment, it looks like he’ll apologize. But then he just nods curtly, turns on his heel, and stalks back towards the door.

Good riddance. Good riddance. Noctis tears his eyes from Ignis’s retreating figure. He stares down at the words and forces himself to read them. But all he can see is the physical script that Ignis put at the headline to identify the paper’s purpose. All he can see is the heading of the report.

_Ignis Scientia, Chamberlain to the King of Lucis._

“No,” he says roughly. “Wait.”

Ignis stops. He stands stock still, poised on the edge of fleeing. Prompto had once compared him to a bird of prey; Noctis can see the comparison in the sharp lines of Ignis’s shoulders. But Ignis doesn’t say a word; he just waits, silent, for his king’s command.

“Just-” Noctis clutches at his armchair. “Behind me.”

“Beg pardon, Your Majesty?”

Oh. It’s the _your_ that gets to him.

Noctis bows his head. He can’t look at Ignis. “Just. Sit on - on the stairs, or something. Stay here. I just can’t - can’t look at you. Not right now.” And then - an afterthought, an instinct - he repeats, “Stay here.”

He doesn’t say _please,_ but he’s sure that Ignis can hear it in his voice.

When Ignis passes him, he makes a wide berth around the chair; if Noctis still had the magic of the Crystal, he’d feel the wrongness of the distance. All the same, it hurts him in a way that he can’t describe.

Does Ignis know that that’s what he’s doing?

The soft scrape of Ignis’s shoes tells him he’s reached the stairs. And then there’s only the sound of clothing shifting on stone, and then silence. There’s no crinkle of papers to signal movement of any sort. It must just be Ignis, sitting still as stone, trying to become one with the marble.

Noctis focuses on the paper again. It’s something important about borders and trade rights. He really should know this. But the words were typed by Ignis himself, so the sentences flow in a way that reminds Noctis of the sound of his voice. His voice saying-

_When my father-_

The minutes pass in a stony, painful silence.

Noctis isn’t willing to be the one to break it. He wasn’t the one to say it. He isn’t the one who needs to apologize. He’s the king.

It seems that Ignis realizes this too.

“I apologize, Noctis,” Ignis says quietly from behind him. He doesn’t sound close, so he must not have left the stairs. At least he’s obedient. “I was out of line.”

“You were.” He’s not angry. He’s just - frustrated. Or hurt.

“In my haste, I said the wrong thing.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t-”

“Wouldn’t understand?” Noctis laughs, low and bitter. “You might have forgotten, but I’m an adult. And your king. Try me.”

“I-” Ignis sighs and shifts; the hard bottoms of his shoe heels drag and click against the marble of the stairs. “I want everything to be perfect.”

 _Ignis._ Of course he’d say something like that. Of course he’d be noble and dutiful to the point of ignorance. Ignis has always been about focus and organization; the ruins of Insomnia must be grating at his nerves, begging him to put back together in a way that suits him best.

“It wasn’t perfect before,” Noctis reminds him.

“It could be. We have a chance now,” Ignis says, voice so full of hope and strained wishfulness. “For all of us. For you.”

He can’t turn around yet. He can’t face Ignis when his voice sounds like that.

“For me?”

“If I could.”

“I won’t be around forever,” he reminds Ignis, and something poisonous and sad rises in his chest again, roaring for release. “You know that.”

Ignis almost laughs, but it just sounds breathless, like the threat of weeping or a coming storm. “All too well.” He falls silent for a moment, then says, “All the more reason to do what I can.”

“You’ll work yourself to death before this place could ever be healed completely. Before it could be perfect.” This place, this world; Noct himself - it’s all the same.

“Noctis,” Ignis says, low and rough and honest, “I would die before allowing anything more to happen to you.”

And it sounds like he means it.

Noctis knows he does.

That’s what scares him the most.

“Ignis,” Noctis sighs.

“Noct,” Ignis says, and some part of Noctis is glad to hear the nickname again. His full name sounds so formal and foreign in Ignis’s voice, so at odds with the easy melody of _Noct_ and _Majesty._

“Ignis,” he repeats, because the easiest way to say things has always been with the simplicity of a name. He turns in his chair, finally looking to where Ignis sits on the stairs to the throne. He looks so defeated, sitting with his knees almost to his chest, curled up on the stairs as if he’d rather be anywhere else. Noct’s heart aches for him.

Ignis tugs his visor off and scrubs at the bridge of his nose, sighing in a way that sounds unbearably tired. “I wouldn’t lie,” he says quietly.

“We’re done dying for each other.” Noctis grips tightly to the armchair. “We’re done throwing ourselves away because we think we’re not good enough.”

Ignis blinks over at him, eye wide and sad and sorry.

“And,” Noctis says, so sure that his voice shakes, “We are done living in the past. I am not my father.” He’s not anyone from the past. He is more than the line of Lucis.

_I am not him. I am not him. I am not him._

“You’re right,” Ignis admits. “You’re right.” He bows his head. “Noct, I am sorry. Truly.”

“I know you are,” Noctis says. “Thank you.” He studies Ignis carefully. “This has been on your mind a lot, hasn’t it?”

Ignis shifts and sighs. “It has.”

“You’re worried about me.”

“I can’t help it.”

Noctis frowns. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Can we-” Noctis sighs and restarts, wishing that his voice didn’t sound so young and hopeful and needy. “Can we just sit for now? Read?”

Ignis’s expression shifts from pained to an unreadable form of softness. “Of course,” he murmurs. “We have plenty of time.”

“Thank you.”

Ignis pulls the rest of his papers out of his jacket pocket and starts to run his fingers over the headings, searching through them quietly. And just like that, he’s Noct’s advisor again, poring over the texts that will help his king. The familiarity is nice.

“Where are you going to sit?” Noctis blinks over at Ignis. “Not the stairs, I hope.”

“I’ve become quite fond of these stairs, if you’ll believe it. Cor and I had many conversations here.”

“Conversations?”

“Trivial things, mostly. Reminiscing about the past. Discussing the future. Hopes and fears.”

“Doesn’t sound so trivial to me.”

“Ah.” Ignis shrugs. “What does the fear of one man matter in a world of gods and kings?”

“As much as his hope.” Noctis smiles, a little lopsided, and the frosty tension begins to melt from the space between them. “At least, in the opinion of this king.”

Ignis must hear the change in his voice, because his expression softens. “High praise,” he murmurs, “from the King of Light.”

The muted reverence in his tone strikes all the words from Noct’s throat, leaving him silent on his chair.

He turns back to the paper and struggles to focus on the words.

Damn it all. He can’t sit still anymore; there’s a restless feeling stirring in his chest, begging him to walk or run or fight. It feels like the anticipation of a summon. It feels like being alive.

He’s still getting used to that.

“I want to go out,” Noctis announces when the restless pressure hammers out an insistent rhythm in his chest.

Ignis raises an eyebrow, folding his papers once more and tucking them back into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Done with the diplomacy already?” he asks. “So much for the reading.”

“Can’t sit still.”

“Very well.” Ignis stands with an easy grace, dusting off his suit. “Where to?”

That stops Noctis for a second. “I- I didn’t get that far,” he admits.

“Any ideas?”

“No.” What does he want?

Ignis makes a quiet hum of contemplation. “You mentioned wanting to see the people. How about we make a first escapade into the city?”

“Where?”

“Prompto mentioned an old story to me not too long ago, actually,” Ignis says.

“What about?”

“Some young prince,” Ignis says. “Still half a child, and reckless. He ran off one day and scared the whole city. He was found in a place that nobody expected but they all should have, if they claimed to know him.”

“A pond,” Noctis finishes. “On the outskirts of the city.”

“Precisely.”

He loves that pond. It’s been years since he’d even allowed himself to think about it. “Any reason why we’re thinking about it now?”

Ignis runs a thoughtful finger along the edge of one of the railings of the stairs. “It always seemed to bring you peace. Why not now?”

“Then let’s go,” Noctis decides.

“On foot?”

“We have all day, don’t we?” Noctis stands from the chair and tucks the paper into his own pocket, not caring if it gets wrinkled or not. He’s the king, right?

Ignis waves toward the door. “After you,” he demurs, but he’s not entirely serious.

“I expect a bow,” Noctis tells him, grinning.

“Do you?”

“I do. I’m the king.” Noctis sets his hands on his hips. “Bow.”

Something changes in Ignis’s face. The half-smile fades from his face and is replaced by a curious, stricken look, lips parting slightly. A soft blush blooms across his cheeks.

And Noctis stops grinning.

This is normal, right? He’s the king. People bow to the king.

Ignis knows this; Ignis was raised for this. He bows slowly, sweeping downwards in a single fluid motion, hand on his chest. He doesn’t have to go that low - they’re not in that sort of company - but Ignis is nothing if not thorough.

When he’s all the way down, he raises his head and blinks up at Noct, solemn and official and elegant. “Majesty,” he murmurs.

Noct’s heard it a million times before.

Why does it feel so different now?

He swallows and says, “Not bad.”

Ignis straightens easily, hand still on his chest. The fist is what uncurls last, all elegant pale fingers unfurling against a black backdrop. Noctis watches the movement, transfixed for a moment. “Years of practice,” Ignis explains, voice oddly strained.

“Yeah,” Noctis agrees. “Yeah.” He starts walking back towards the doors. “Let’s - let’s go.”

Ignis is silent for a moment, but then his sharp footsteps begin and grow louder as he catches up to Noctis, drawing level with him as they exit the throne room. “You’ve never asked me to bow before,” Ignis comments quietly, heels clicking along the marble hallway.

“No,” Noctis answers faintly. “Just seemed like a thing to do.”

“Protocol,” Ignis offers, but it’s an empty suggestion. More like an instinct, an answer provided because Ignis is obligated to give one.

“Protocol,” Noctis echoes. As he walks, his fingers brush the back of Ignis’s hands, and they both flinch away like they’ve been burned.

Gods, what’s wrong with him?

It’s like he’s hyperaware of everything about Ignis. Ever since the office, and ever since Ignis had begged to bear the full weight of his guilt.

Ever since he’d tried-

And Ignis had said no.

_Not today._

When?

He’d thought that Ignis would want it too. That after everything, they would have known each other well enough to read each other’s desires.

It seems he still hasn’t learned everything about Ignis.

They step out into the wintry air, and Noctis is thankful that now he can blame the cold snap of the wind for the flush rising on his cheeks.

“It’s cold,” he complains, trudging down the stone steps of the Citadel.

Ignis snorts. “Did you expect otherwise?” he asks, smiling, but he tugs a scarf out of his coat pocket and passes it to Noct nonetheless.

Noctis takes it and wraps it around his neck, burying his face in the soft fabric, still warm from the depths of Ignis’s pockets. If he breathes in deeply enough, he can smell something clean and comfortingly familiar. It’s a nice feeling to be wrapped up in, and that keeps him warmer than the scarf ever could. “Don’t you need this?” he asks, though, because Ignis’s neck is bare.

“I can manage,” Ignis assures him, “though you surprise me. I was under the impression that you ran hot.”

“How so?”

Ignis inclines his head towards Noctis, stepping nimbly around a pothole in his path. “Ever since your resurrection, your skin has been hotter to the touch, especially on the right side.”

The right side. Huh. Noctis glances down at where his wrist pokes out from the sleeve of his jacket, studying the pale gray of the skin there and the veins of fire that cut rivers through the blandness. “Really?” he asks. “I don’t feel warm.”

“You get fevers more often now,” Ignis reminds him. “Prompto has always told me that your burns remind him of embers or flames.”

“And the skin’s like ashes,” Noctis muses. He flexes his fingers, watching the way his charred skin shifts and stretches across his bones. “The heat - I think it’s magic.”

“Magic?” Ignis asks sharply. There’s something in his voice that sounds like desperation, or like hope rekindled.

Noct shakes his head even though Ignis can’t see it. “Not that kind.”

Ignis’s shoulders slump slightly. “Ah,” he says. His neutral tone does little to hide his disappointment.

“Yeah. It’s, uh, gods magic. Covenants, I think.”

“Like the magic of the Oracle?”

“No. No, Luna’s magic was light. It was gold.” He thinks of Luna’s shade reaching out to clutch at the daemons in Ardyn’s form, giving Noctis more time. The light was gold and beautiful and he saw it in her eyes, on their throne.

That magic...it’s not in this world. Not anymore. A phoenix down can’t revive magic.

“It’s old magic,” he explains clumsily. “Red. Warm. I can’t just...use it. But it’s there. They left it there.”

“Like the runestones of Ramuh,” Ignis suggests. “Your eyes were red.”

“That’s the red,” Noct agrees. “The red on this side.”

“In your eye as well?”

“Yeah.” His eye doesn’t burn in the same way his veins do, but sometimes he just. _Sees._

“Ah.” Ignis swipes an errant hair out of place, tucking it behind the arm of his visor. “I remember those eyes. From the summons. A different version of you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” Ignis’s voice goes a bit distant, gaining a nostalgic edge. “That magic was different. Wild. Ancient beyond the Crystal. It was evident in your eyes.” He chuckles, low and almost self-deprecating. “In those battles, when I’d meet your eyes...I almost feared you.”

“You were afraid?” He can’t imagine that. Ignis, afraid. Ignis, afraid of _him._

“Perhaps not afraid. If anything, it was regal. Fearsome in a way that reminded me of my place.” Ignis turns his head towards Noctis. “Even though you’d shared the Crystal’s power with us, only you could hold so much raw magic and survive. That you could withstand that which has killed others-”

“It’s not half as impressive as that.”

Ignis raises a careful eyebrow. “It was to me. You sell yourself short.”

“I just know my limits.”

“I saw what you could do,” Ignis counters. “There are some memories which transcend years without sight. And I would never forget the power of kings. Of _my_ king.”

“A power I can’t control anymore.” He doesn’t ask what else Ignis has remembered - which other images he’s chosen to cherish beyond the disappearance of his sight. But he wonders.

How many of those memories are of him?

Some part of him knows that Ignis is right in his assessment of the power of the gods. There’s the insistent hum of magic in his veins, in his chest, whispering to him with the voices of the astrals. He hasn’t summoned any of them since the talk with Shiva. He’s not sure he wants to. Shiva’s influence had left him numb for too long, ignorant of his fears and grief that piled up around him, unseeing until the ice of her illusion had shattered.

Ignis’s scarf, though, staves off the cold well enough.

And then there’s Ignis’s smile, soft and encouraging. “You always did get frustrated during your training,” he says quietly, “when you didn’t immediately understand the magic.”

Noctis can’t help but grin. “I seem to remember you doing the same thing in your training.”

“And yet,” Ignis says, “we overcame. And here we are, by the magic of the gods.”

He’s right, of course. The gods left their mark on him for a reason. It’s not his fault that he can’t immediately master it.

“Here we are,” Noctis echoes.

The rest of their walk to the pond is spent in silence. A few people recognize them More of them recognize Ignis than Noctis, actually. Noctis had forgotten that he’d always been private back when he was young, and that there’s no major news outlet that can broadcast his face to the masses. Besides, Ignis has been one of the faces of civilization for ten years. It’s only natural.

“How’s the king, Master Scientia?” one man calls, busy setting new stones in the fractured street.

Ignis smiles benevolently, and replies, “Just fine. He’s recovering well. And is that Master Raines I hear?”

“It is indeed!” the man in question exclaims. “Who’s your friend?”

“The king,” Ignis says simply.

“The king!” Raines guffaws. “Your sense of humor is sharp as ever!”

Noctis smiles but says nothing; he just nods a quick hello to the man and walks on.

“You weren’t going to tell him?” he asks quietly once they’re out of earshot.

“I did. He simply didn’t believe me.” Ignis’s lips quirk into a half smile. “Feeling left out?”

“You wish.”

They lapse once more into a comfortable silence. Neither of them seem to mind too much. They’ve never been the type to need to fill the space between them with words.

The sight of the pond is a welcome one when they get to it, passing into its green park space through a rusted metal gate. Ignis breathes in deeply, probably trying to get a sense of this scrap of nature in the metal of the city, and asks, “How does it look?”

Noctis sighs a bit; he can’t help the smile on his face. “Just like how I remember it. Better, even.”

The water is freezing around the edges, touched by frost that turns it into fractals and sheets of chilliness. Other than that, it’s a deep shade of blue turned glassy by the angle of the sun, transforming it into a mirror of the sky. The reflections of the skyline waver and ripple across it, distorting and reforming the images over and over. And there’s the little dock where Noctis used to sit and fish and talk to anyone who was bold enough to approach him.

It’s all still here.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of people about today, milling around on the grass, crunching leaves underfoot as they go. There’re a few stalls selling trinkets and appliances to eager buyers, and there are booths set up where contractors are offering up their services to people eager to rebuild their homes.

Here they are: Noct’s people.

“Ready?” Ignis asks.

Noctis nods. “Let’s go.”

For a few beautiful moments, nobody recognizes them. For a few moments, they weave through the crowd, just taking in the sights. They’re not in their formal clothes; plenty of people wear suits, and black is a common enough color now. They’re just a pair of men, scarred by the dawn and blinded by the war.

And then-

“King Noctis!” someone cries, and that’s when everyone realizes.

Ignis’s hand finds Noct’s wrist and holds him there tightly. Noctis almost pulls out of his grip and tells him that he can fend for himself until he realizes that it’s just as much for Ignis’s benefit as it is for his. The press of bodies and the rising call of _Your Majesty_ must be disconcerting and confusing, even to Ignis.

So he twists in Ignis’s grip instead and runs a fingertip along the curve of Ignis’s fingers, hoping that it’ll be enough to settle him. Ignis’s grip loosens, just slightly, so it must be.

The people are all looking at him now, all pressing in and trying to get a look at their king. Noctis doesn’t blame them for their eagerness, not really.

A woman shoulders her way through the crowd, clutching something in her arms. “Your Majesty!” she calls, voice high and desperate.

Noctis almost doesn’t react; for a second, he almost turns to see if his father is somewhere in the crowd, receiving the people’s concerns.

But it’s just him.

He lets her draw level with him and looks down. She has a baby in her arms, looking thin and pale in the cold winter air. She’s swaddled the child in layers upon layers of blankets, but it still doesn’t look like enough. “Please, Your Majesty,” she begs. “You have the magic. Could you help my daughter?”

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that his magic is gone. “What’s wrong?” he asks instead, staring down at the too-pale infant.

“A wasting sickness,” she says, lip trembling. “The Scourge left me weakened. She was born fragile.” And it must be true in part: she has pale, spidering scarlet veins along her hands. It must extend quite far if the infection had affected the child.

Noctis breathes out a sigh, letting his breath create a pale cloud in the air. The Scourge, it seems, has doomed people regardless of its disappearance from the world. Everywhere, there are weakened people with red veins where the dawn had burned the sickness away. But in a way, the sickness had sustained them, and now in its absence, its hosts are left drained. Noctis sees it in Prompto sometimes, evident in the gentle shaking of his hands or the way he gets exhausted from too much exertion. And now this child, who’s never known a world under cover of night, has been ravaged by the disease of her mother.

Softly, desperately, he says, “I don’t know how-”

“Please, your Majesty,” she begs.

Noctis looks helplessly over at Ignis. “I can’t,” he murmurs. Ignis should know what to do. Ignis can help.

Ignis leans in close, protecting his words in the shell of Noct’s ear. “You can can only try. Merely the appearance of a blessing from the king may be able to help.”

“Isn’t that a lie?”

“In times like this, people crave the relief of a lie.”

Did Ignis hold onto lies in the Night? The promise of vision? The hope for Noct’s return? Something in his voice says that he knows that desperate longing all too well.

He won’t leave this mother to grieve her child. Noctis didn’t die to leave his people desperate.

“Okay,” he whispers. He locks eyes with the mother and smiles faintly. “I’ll try.”

There’s something in the back of his mind that It feels like magic, or a whisper, or the bark of a dog in the distance. Luna had done something like this, once. Healing of a different source.

_You are not him._

He lays his burn-scarred hand on the child’s forehead and stares down at her. He tries to reach for the restless magic in the back of his mind, trying to force it from his head and heart down through his ruined fingers.

For a few panicked heartbeats, nothing happens.

But then there’s a rush in his ears like a train flying through a station or Leviathan crashing through the waters of Altissia or Luna’s last breath. And suddenly everything is red around him - not red like Ardyn’s twisted armiger, never Ardyn, _I’m not him_ \- and he sees the girl’s weakness like a void. He pours some of the magic into her, gasping with the effort of sharing some part of himself with her. And he can feel it working. It’s a feral magic, so unlike the effort of imbuing their potions with the power of kings.

And then-

It’s over.

Noctis lifts his hand, gasping, and his vision clears, returning the world to shades of blues and greens and browns. He feels like he’s run a mile or summoned the armiger or battled a god all over again.

“Noct,” Ignis says urgently, so close. “Noctis, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Noctis manages breathlessly. “I’m fine.” He’s faced worse than this. He has eyes only for the girl.

When the child opens her eyes, squinting into the wintry daylight, her irises are a clear blue, tinged violet by the suggestion of a blessing. She coughs once, then opens her mouth and wails loudly with all the strength of a healthy child.

The mother looks up at him with barely-concealed awe. “Your Majesty,” she whispers, close to tears.

“Your Majesty,” Ignis echoes in a voice tinged with wonder.

She hugs the infant to her chest. “I’ll name her Nocturna, for you. To remember what you have done for her.”

_Oh._

“Ma’am,” Noct begins softly, trying to work around the sudden lump in his throat. He’d gone through so much of his childhood meeting children who’d been named in honor of the crown prince of Lucis, with identities given to them based on the birth of a prince they’d never know. Noct had been used to it. It was just part of being prince. But this-

This is different.

“Call her Noct, then,” he manages, and he smiles. “It’s a good nickname.”

“Noct,” she repeats, staring down at her daughter. At Noct. She meets his eyes again. “Your Majesty, you have no idea what you have done for me. For my daughter.”

“No,” Noctis agrees, “but I’m glad I could.”

“Thank you,” she says, and then again, “ _Thank you.”_

Noctis smiles; nods.

Others around them echo the sentiment, whispering _Thank you_ and _Majesty._ He doesn’t hear them, though. He just feels numb.

Ignis leads him away from the mother and daughter, and a gaggle of people fill the place where they’d been, filling in to get a look at the child the king blessed.

Noctis feels strangely weak; he’s able only to focus on the sure weight of Ignis’s hand on his back, leading him away. He shivers suddenly in the cold, burying his face in the comfortable warmth of Ignis’s scarf.

“Still with us?” Ignis asks quietly.

Noctis nods jerkily. “Just - just took a lot out of me.” He exhales heavily. “I didn’t think that I could do that.”

“But you did,” Ignis assures him, and there’s still a breathless wonder in his voice.

“I did,” Noctis says. “I did.”

He doesn’t know if he’d be able to do it again. But the warmth is still there in the back of his mind, fainter than before but undeniably present.

They push slowly through the crowd of people, trying their best to greet everyone who tries to say hello. Ignis does most of the talking; Noctis casts his eyes down and tries to recollect his thoughts from the redness of the gods’ power.

But not everyone seems satisfied to just see his face.

“King Noctis,” one young woman says, gently laying a hand on his arm.

Noctis turns, startled at the touch. But there’s something in this woman’s eyes that seems faintly familiar, as if from millennia away. “Yes?” he asks.

She falters for a moment, seeming almost surprised that Noctis has turned and granted her an audience. “King Noctis,” she says again, “I wanted to thank you.”

It seems like everyone does around here.

Noctis smiles softly and nods. “Thank you.” And he starts to turn and head away, but then her hand on his arm tightens, just a bit, and he stops again.

“Majesty?” Ignis asks quietly, and there’s a bit of a veiled threat in there, a promise to defend.

“It’s fine,” Noctis says, then he looks back at the woman. “You wanted...you wanted to say something else?”

She looks relieved, like she’s been struggling to find a way to bring up whatever topic is on her mind. “I do. I, well. I’m Serah. You might not remember, but we were study partners in-”

“History,” Noctis finishes. “I remember.”

“That’s right,” she says, eyes bright. Her gaze flicks to Ignis. “And you. You’re his advisor. The one who drove him.” There’s a touch of uncertainty in her tone, like she’s seen the scars and is struggling to make sense of them.

Ignis must hear the hesitation in her voice, because he dips his head in acknowledgement. “I am.”

“Right.” She focuses on Noctis again, eyes wide. “You saved us all,” she tells him. “You brought home back to us.”

Noctis looks up at the sky and out at the skyline in the distance. In the daylight, Insomnia glitters with frost and the promise of a coming spring. “It is home,” he murmurs. “Isn’t it?”

“Always will be.” She smiles again, wistful and sad. Noctis remembers study sessions with her in their high school library. She’d treated him like just another student, for the most part. He can see in her gaze that she still sees the quiet prince she’d grown up with. “Thank you for stopping and talking to me, Your Majesty.”

“I’ve always been Noctis to you.”

She shrugs. “Times change. We were kids.”

“Times have changed, haven’t they?”

“Too much,” she agrees. “But also not nearly enough.” She lays a careful hand on his arm. “Take care.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He stares at her as she draws away, then adds, “You, too.”

“Charming,” Ignis comments.

“Me, or her?”

“Your farewells could use some work.”

Noctis huffs out a breath, and Ignis snorts quietly.

“I didn’t realize how many people survived.”

“There were many refugees after the Fall and once the Night began,” Ignis points out. “It’s only natural that some of your childhood classmates made it out.”

“It’s just. Good to see.”

“It is,” Ignis agrees amiably. “Come now. I’m sensing that we’re at the edge of the crowd.”

He’s right, of course. The crowd has thinned before them, letting the chilly air break through to them. Even though Noctis still feels a little unsteady and weak, the wind hits him in the face in the most refreshing way. It feels good.

“Come on,” Noct urges. “Let’s go to the water.”

“You have no fishing gear,” Ignis reminds him, “and the water will be freezing.”

“We don’t need to fish to enjoy the pond, Ignis.”

“Very well. Lead on.”

Noctis reaches out this time, wrapping his fingers around Ignis’s wrist for support. He leads them down the uneven grassy path towards the water. The dock is clear for now. He makes a beeline for it, tugging Ignis along.

Ignis, for his part, comes along without much protest, stepping delicately over holes and dips when Noctis warns him of them. His face is turned slightly upwards, probably soaking up the meager sunlight. If Noctis looks closely, he can see that Ignis’s right eye is shut behind the dark glass of his visor, heavy-lidded with some curious emotion Noctis can’t name. Maybe this place has the same sort of memories for Ignis as it does for Noctis himself.

At the edge of the dock like this, Noctis can certainly think of a few.

How many times has he sat on this dock, staring out at the water? How many times had he wished for something incredible to happen, for something to take him away from Insomnia and out into the world beyond? How many times had he escaped to this spot in frustration, knowing that his father would never personally leave the Citadel to come find him here?

A chill runs up his spine, and it’s not entirely from the cold.

Gods, he wishes he had his fishing gear. But that’s lost too, locked away in the armiger for which he no longer has the key. Magic is gone, and with it, so many of his greatest pleasures.

But it’s quiet.

“Your Majesty?”

Noctis almost sighs out his frustration. He’s tired; he wasn’t expecting this much on his first real outing. But the voice is the voice of a child, and if there was a ever a place to reconnect with the children of Insomnia, it’s here. His pond.

He turns, and sure enough, there’s a small child there without any parents around him, staring up at him with wide eyes. Noctis smiles and says hello, but his voice catches in his throat when he realizes-

One of the boy’s eyes is red.

It’s not the glowing red of Noct’s right eye, but the iris is scarlet-brown nonetheless. There are Scourge veins spidering out across his face as well, stretching across his cheeks and down his neck and into the depths of his winter coat. An unfortunate place for the infection to manifest.

His surprise must show on his face, because the kid’s face falls. “I knew it,” he says in the most heartbreaking voice Noctis has ever heard. “I knew they were ugly.”

Ignis makes a soft, pained noise.

“Oh, hey,” Noctis says softly. “Hey, no, that’s not what I meant at all.”

“I just wanted-” The kid swallows, looking dangerously close to crying. “I just wanted to ask if you could fix them.”

“Hey,” Noctis says, and he drops into a crouch in front of the kid. He rolls up his right sleeve, exposing his soft charred skin and scarlet veins to the cool air. He tugs down the scarf as well, revealing the entirety of his half-scarred face as well. “Take a look at this. We match, huh?”

The kid eyes him warily with teary eyes that dart from the arm to his face and then back again. He nods quickly.

Noctis smiles. “I’ve got it a little worse than you, with the skin and all. But my best friend has them too. You know him?”

The kid nods again. “Prompto,” he whispers, barely audible over the murmur of the crowd. “He’s a legend.”

Prompto, a legend. Noct never thought he’d see the day. “That’s right,” Noctis agrees. “And you match him. Sounds pretty cool to me.”

“I guess.”

“Good. You should be proud of the red.” Noctis places his hand on the kid’s shoulder, and the two of them both look at the way their veins mix and match like tongues of scarlet flame. “It means you survived.”

“I survived,” the kid repeats quietly, trying the words out carefully.

Noctis smiles. “That’s right.” He squeezes the kid’s shoulder gently. “And nobody can take that away from you. If anyone ever says anything about that, remind them that you look like the king and Prompto Argentum. And this guy, too,” he adds, and he gestures up to where Ignis is waiting.

The kid’s wide mismatched eyes stare up at Ignis. “You’re Ignis Scientia,” he breathes. “You’re the hero of Lestallum. The blind hero.”

Ignis’s face twists into something surprised and oddly touched. “A generous nickname,” he says, voice low and shy.

“A true one,” Noctis agrees, and he shares a little smile with the child. “Isn’t that right?”

“Right!”

“Right,” Noctis echoes. He squeezes the kid’s shoulder again. “Do we have an understanding now?”

“We do, Your Majesty.” The kid leans in close and whispers into his ear, shyly, “I want to be your Crownsguard when I grow up.”

“Do you?” Noctis asks. “I’d be honored to have you. Come back when you’re older, yeah?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

Noctis smiles and stands, tugging his sleeve back down to cover his burn-scarred skin. “It was good talking to you. What’s your name, future Crownsguard?”

“Hope,” the kid says, smiling brightly. He swipes a shirt cuff across his face to get rid of the remainder of his tears.

“Hope,” Noctis repeats. “Pleased to meet you.” He nods. “I’ll see you around.”

“Goodbye, King Noctis!” Hope waves a little, then calls, “And you too, Ignis Scientia!”

And then he’s gone, hurrying back into the crowd to find his parents.

Noctis stands there, dumbfounded. That was...a lot.

Ignis is the one to break their silence. “That was...admirable, Noctis.”

Noctis shrugs. “It was the truth.”

“Regardless.” Ignis glances over at him. “Admirable.”

They slip away from the crowd and docks with a few polite nods and meaningful looks. The people understand, it seems, and they leave their king alone to walk along a quiet part of the pond undisturbed.

“Are you okay?” Ignis asks him.

“You keep asking me that.”

“Forgive me, Noct, but you seem overwhelmed.”

He’s right, of course. “It was a lot,” Noctis admits with a sigh. “There were so many people.”

Ignis nods, lips pressed tightly together. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”

“That’s okay.”

They stop on the far edge of the pond, across the way from the bustling mass of the crowd. They look small from this distance, but the sounds of their mingling carries across the half-frozen water, sounding like something hopeful and happy.

Noct’s people.

“A wonderful day,” Ignis says softly, staring out across the water.

When Noctis glances over at him, he can see the way that Ignis’s eyebrows are creased into something contemplative and sad. Beyond that, though, all expression is lost beneath

“Take off the glasses, Ignis.”

“Whatever for?”

“You don’t need them.” Noctis wants to tell him _I hate the visor_ or _I want to see the way the silver in your eye looks in the sunlight_ or _you should never be ashamed._ But he doesn’t. Not out here, not in the open. “You don’t have to hide.”

“Merely a protection,” Ignis says, skirting the issue with expert control.

“For who?”

“Whom, Noct.”

“Stop avoiding the question.”

Ignis sighs, frustrated. “When I'm outside, I need the visor to protect my eyes from the light of the sun. Inside, even when it's dim and the lights are low...I don’t feel comfortable about it. Not in public. The scars...people whisper. They think less of me if it’s obvious that I’m blind.”

“Ignis,” Noctis starts. Ignis is one of the best of the best in all of Lucis. That he would think so little of himself after all this time - it hurts.

“It’s fine,” Ignis says hurriedly. “I’ve dealt with it for years.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

Ignis smiles down at him, lips twisting into something sad and fond. “You live in such an idealistic world, Noct,” he tells him, voice soft above the soft whisper of the wind. “This world could use some of that hope.”

“Hope,” Noctis murmurs. “Then I hope to see you without the visor one day. Proud.”

“One day,” Ignis echoes. “But not today.”

They don’t say anything more. They don’t need to.

For a few breathless, endless minutes, it’s just the two of them on the edge of the pond, staring out at something neither of them can quite see. Noctis doesn’t know what Ignis is thinking about, but if he squints, he can see the hazy outline of two figures on the dock across the water.

He remembers those figures. He misses them.

The only sounds between them are the soft hush of the wind and the murmur of the crowd across the lake. And in his mind, he can hear the soft, indulgent laugh of a different Ignis, warning him that he’ll catch a cold if he jumps into the pond for a fish.

They’re not those children anymore. But there’s something of them still in there, sitting in their hearts with the memory of magic.

He almost lowers his hand; almost reaches for Ignis’s hand instead of his wrist this time.

Something tells him it’s not the time.

_Not today._

“We should head back,” Noctis says.

Ignis nods. “We should.”

It’s cold, and it’s getting late. Winter is falling, and the days are getting shorter. For once, though, they don’t fear the darkening skies. For once, it’s normal, and beautiful, and winter is falling on Insomnia.

So the two of them stride off together, lending warmth to each other when their hands brush. Neither of them pull away from the contact.

Neither of them mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Wind_Ryder for the correction about Ignis's visor. :)


	21. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowing and learning.

Sometimes, Ignis allows himself to be in the spotlight.

His heels click satisfyingly against the marble of the Citadel hallways, ringing out a sharp staccato that announces his presence. Ignis works from behind the scenes, of course, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy some attention every once in a while.

He’s gotten good practice at recognizing when people have their eyes on him. No gaze can quite match the odd intensity of Noct’s, but Ignis can feel their attention nonetheless, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up at the phantom sensation. There are whispers as he passes, too, but he tries not to listen to those. Too often, he doesn’t like what he hears from the lips of his countrymen when they forget that a blind man has ears.

Carefully, casually, he adjusts his visor on his nose, ensuring that it covers his face in perfect balance. The lenses are large enough that they obscure much of the scarring, but people know what lies underneath the hardened glass. They know that glasses this dark have only one purpose indoors. They know that the king’s chamberlain felt more at home in the consuming darkness of the night than he ever feels under the harsh exposure of the sun. If they’ve come from Lestallum, as so many have, they’ve seen the scars. They know that he’s not the man he had been when he’d left Insomnia ten years ago, and somehow that makes them bold and callous and cruel.

He’d never felt so exposed during the Night. Is this how Prompto felt in his wheelchair, aware of everyone taking pains to accommodate him? Aware of all the people who whisper about who he was and what he used to be?

It’s how Ignis feels, at least.

The glasses help with the illusion, he supposes. Besides being useful in protecting his eyes from light he can no longer see, they protect him from being seen in ways he doesn’t want to present himself. It pains him, though, that he must actively block out the sun. Noctis died for the sun to rise.

If that is the price Ignis must pay for what he has done, so be it. Noctis is alive. That’s all that matters.

Ignis escapes the main hallways and heads into the more secluded administrative quarters. Immediately, the sensation of watching eyes decreases as he turns the corners, and so too do the whispers. It’s a relief, to say the least. Besides, these hallways are familiar; he’s known them all his life. In these hallways, he is in his element. He’s still just Ignis Scientia, the prince’s little advisor, too smart for his own good - at least, that’s how he remembers it. They’re nice memories to relive, and if he just closes his eyes, he can pretend that things are like they were twenty years ago, when he’d had perfect vision and too much pride for his own good.

Little fantasies. They’re harmless, mostly.

To his surprise, Noctis is in their shared office. Or. The king’s office, which Ignis now uses as well. He must be; Ignis can hear him make a quiet sound of contented surprise when he opens the door.

“Good evening,” he greets Noctis smoothly, closing the door behind himself. He heads into the office, passing Noct’s desk on the way to his own.

Noctis is not nearly so polite. “Where have you been?”

Ignis places his jacket over the back of his chair carefully. “Hunting.”

“Alone?”

“I was with Gladio and Dustin.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” If he neglects to mention the bite that Gladio got on one of his arms, well, what Noctis doesn’t know won’t hurt him. They had gotten him back to the infirmary in enough time to get it nicely wrapped. They may no longer have the luxury of potions, but their doctors still excel at what they do; it’s not as if modern medicine had stopped working when the kings decided to rely on magic.

Noctis makes a quiet, contemplative sound but says nothing more.

“Aren’t you going to ask about the others?”

“No?” Noctis sounds so utterly baffled by the question that Ignis almost laughs. “Why would I?”

“Are they not your friends? Is Gladio not your sworn Shield?”

“Well, yeah, but.” A rustling comes from Noct’s chair that must be indicative of a shrug. “I’m asking you.”

“Ah.” Ignis rolls his shoulders a bit, wincing when a movement results in a sharp crack from a joint. He really should’ve stretched right after the hunt. “What did you do while I was gone?”

“Sat here. Worked.”

“Did you really?”

“Some of the time, at least. Spent the rest down the hall in Prom’s office. He took a break to show me his photos from outside.”

“Any good ones?”

“Children playing. People in their stalls, caught in the act of selling their stuff. Prompto does candids really well. He just knows Insomnia so well. And the people.”

“He was one of those common people once.”

“Common people. It’s a weird term, isn’t it?”

“Is it? I never noticed.”

“You never had to interact with them until the Night,” Noctis points out. “None of you did, really, until we left Insomnia.”

“A side effect of our upbringing, I suppose. Though you had more exposure than either Gladio or I, what with your schooling and extracurriculars.”

“They’re all you’re exposed to now.”

Ignis sits down slowly in his chair, furrowing his brow. “Why are you using that tone?”

“I didn’t know where you were today.” There’s that petulant edge again. “Or who you were with.”

“Your subjects, Noctis. We need to help.”

“Look, I know that. I just wish I’d known.” He goes quiet for a moment.

Ignis takes that as a dismissal and decides not to continue that particular conversation. There’s the seed of a fight somewhere in the list of responses he could give, and he’d rather not start an argument when he’s just gotten back from hunting. He bows his head, trying once more to work out stubborn knots in his muscles, a combination of work stress and soreness from hunting after so long spent in quiet solitude in the Citadel. He’s out of practice.

“I would’ve gone with you.”

Ignis looks up in surprise at the quiet words. “Next time, then,” he promises. He wouldn’t mind fighting alongside Noctis once more; they haven’t done that since battling Ifrit. He wonders how Noct would fight now that he’s powerless. He’ll need training so that he doesn’t try to rely on magic he no longer has. Even Ignis still has moments when he stumbles and tries to conjure flames for an attack, only to find his hands cold and trembling around the hilts of his daggers.

“Next time,” Noctis echoes. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Thank you, Noct.” He really does need to get some work done.

There are papers waiting for him from Prompto’s office, piled up neatly in the little basket Ignis has left for precisely that purpose. Prompto had gotten a nice scanner installed in his office and a physical printer as well for Ignis’s convenience, because he knows that Ignis reads better than he listens, and that sometimes the voice-to-text feature is dreadfully inaccurate.

The office falls into a comfortable silence for a few uncountable minutes, filled only by the occasional sound of Ignis flipping a paper over or Noctis shifting in his desk chair across the room. It’s nice, really. They’ve adopted this sort of easy rhythm lately, and Ignis would be lying if he said he hadn’t missed it while he was out hunting today.

Ignis checks a sentence again, frowning. That can’t be right. There can’t possibly be that many sahagins. He contemplates calling Prompto to check the figures. “Is Prompto in?” he asks.

“Should be,” Noctis says, voice decidedly slurred.

Ignis stops reading his paper. “Are you sleeping?” It’s only been...what? Fifteen minutes?

Noctis snorts, but then his chair squeaks and shifts a bit, so he must be sitting up. “No,” he says, like the liar he is. “Yes.”

“Thought so.”

“Could say the same for you. Eyes closed on the job?”

Ignis raises an eyebrow. “I’m reading, Noct.”

“Reading what?”

“One of Prompto’s reports on Cleigne. You have a copy as well, you know.”

“Bah.”

Ignis sighs. “Thought so. Would you prefer if we worked together on something? If it’ll get you engaged in the logistics of ruling your nation?”

“My nation,” Noctis says with a touch of wonder but also a derisive snort. “Sure. What do you have?”

“Well,” Ignis says, setting aside the sahagin report for later, “I got in touch with the provisional government of Accordo. They called yesterday evening.”

Noctis hums out something that might be an acknowledgement. It does, at least, sound vaguely like a question, so Ignis takes it as a cue.

“They had questions about reestablishing trade between our nations.”

“Did they?”

“Indeed. Now, they’re going to need our crop support for a few years at least while they rebuild. I was thinking that we could coordinate that with Prompto and Dave to ensure that they receive a continuous meat and grain supply while they cultivate their own crops once more.”

“Sure.”

Ignis frowns. “They’ll only be offering us minerals in return. Stone and metal for rebuilding, and the like.”

“Sure.”

“And they also want to invade our entire nation and make it their own.”

“Yeah?”

Ignis sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Are you even listening?”

“Yeah, totally.” Noct’s tone turns sheepish. “Promise.”

“You’re still a terrible liar, Noctis, despite your many talents.”

“No, really. Totally listening.”

“Repeat what I just told you.”

“Uh. Minerals in return for something. Stone? And, uh.” He stops. “Oh. Invasion. That was...not real.” He sighs, and he at least has the tact to sound chagrined. “Sorry, Ignis.”

Ignis places his head in his hands. “Noctis,” he groans, “I cannot do everything for you. If this is to be an effective working relationship, I do need the king to participate.”

“I’m participating. Promise.”

A promise. Well, at least he’s awake. Ignis raises his head from his hands and tries his best to collect himself. “So. What do you have to say about Accordo’s proposed trade?”

“Uh.” Across the office, Noctis makes a helpless noise. “They can do what they want. I guess.”

“They very well cannot, Noctis.” Ignis rubs wearily at the bridge of his nose. “That’s not how politics work.”

“Why can’t we all just be one nation? Just all of Eos, united? We could all keep our names.” He’d had a dream of that happening once. He’d told Prompto, and Prompto had listened. Ignis had heard it too, faintly, from across the dormitory. He knows that Noctis cherishes those dreams of peace.

But it is also his duty to keep the king in line. “Who would rule such a nation?”

“All of us.” Noctis pauses. “None of us.”

“Have you forgotten Niflheim?” Ignis hasn’t. At night, he still sees the flags in the maelstrom of Altissia, sodden and limp and bleeding scarlet. “They wanted a world under one flag.”

Noctis sighs. “We’re not Niflheim,” he admits. “But isn’t it possible? Living in peace?”

“On our own, yes. Do you truly wish to be responsible for the welfare of the whole world?”

“Well.” There’s a sad note in Noct’s voice now, and a laugh without humor. “I’ve done it before.”

Ah. “Right you are, Noct.” He doesn’t know what else to say other than that. How do you acknowledge the death of a king?

“So,” Noctis tries, a little slowly. “Accordo.”

“Yes. Were we in the world before the Fall of Insomnia, I would not accept a deal such as this. Even now…” Ignis shrugs. “I have my reservations.”

“But don’t we need stone to rebuild?”

“Its transportation is a problem. For the amount of fuel we have, I don’t think it’s efficient to fill boats with rocks.”

“The mines in Leide didn’t look great when we were in them,” Noctis argues. “I don’t know if we’d be able to get enough metal out of them. Or get them in working order at all.”

Ignis wrinkles his nose. He hates Balouve and its winding corridors and filthy water. “That’s the problem. Lucis was already decaying by the time the Night fell. Too long at war. Too long under Niflheim and the Scourge.”

“Well, it’s not our fault.” Noctis falls silent.

Ignis runs his fingers over the printed transcript of his call with Accordo’s officials. There must be something they can do. There must be something else that Accordo can offer to them.

“Hey, wait, Ignis.”

“What’s that?”

“Doesn’t that mean that there’s a precedent for trade between us?”

Ignis blinks. “It does.”

“So, wouldn’t doing this trade reestablish that old relationship?”

Gods, _of course._ “It would.”

“So I say we take the deal. We can negotiate other things when we get stronger.” There’s a careful slowness to his words, as if he’s concerned that he’ll be wrong.

Ignis sits back a bit in his chair, mulling it over for a moment. He’s right. Gods, of course Noct is right; why hadn’t he thought of that? “I hadn’t given that any thought until now, Noct. A grave oversight on my part, and a great insight on yours.”

Noctis doesn’t reply to that, but Ignis can practically hear the way he preens at the praise.

Ignis smiles and types out a quick note, relying on muscle memory and the soft rasp of the physical script on the keys of the keyboard. “So spake the king.”

“Make a note of it.”

“I already have.” And he’s printing it; he’s very proactive that way, if he says so himself. Ignis spins in his chair, leaning towards the filing cabinet there. He runs his fingers along the labels on the folders he finds, searching for the one of interest. The label is one of the ones Noctis had helped him create, and when he reads the label all he can hear is _Accordo_ in the soft, uncertain cadence of his king’s voice.

Carefully, he slips his note into the file, tucking it away so that it’s secure. Another order of business taken care of, and this time thanks to his king. Perhaps this is evidence of further development to come from Noct’s abilities as a king.

Behind him, he hears Noct say, “You’re so good at this.”

He says, “I certainly hope so. After twenty two years of my life devoted to learning the intricacies of democracy, I’d expect the work to pay off in some way.”

“I don’t know anything,” Noctis groans. “Nobody ever taught me how to be a king.”

“You had your lessons.”

“Nobody _checked._ ”

Ignis turns in his chair, facing back towards Noctis. “Your insight was what solved our problem, or at least the beginning of it. I’d call that a test.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What _did_ you mean, then?”

“That-” Noctis huffs out a breath. “That nobody bothered to check whether or not I was on track to becoming king. Before.”

“You were top of your class, Noct. We all viewed that as a testament to your preparedness to learn.”

“You were top of yours. Try again.”

“I was privately schooled, Noctis.”

“Like I said: you should be king.”

“And like I said: I’m not cut out for that work. I’m here to support you in everything you do.” Ignis folds his hands carefully on his desk, fixing his gaze in Noct’s direction. “You are the king of Lucis, whether you like it or not. And I am your advisor, for better or for worse. Thick and thin, life and death - I will help you through it all.”

Noctis hums a quiet tune in response to that, low and thoughtful and pleased. It sounds like something Prompto would do, but from Noct it just sounds calm and quiet and at peace. “Thank you, Ignis.”

“Of course.” As if there would ever be any question.

“Hey, Ignis?”

“Yes, Noct?”

“Will you take the visor off?”

Ignis blinks. “The light-”

“Is off. It’s sunset. There’s no direct sunlight. I made sure.”

Well. That’s...surprising. Surprisingly thoughtful of Noctis. Would the prince of ten years ago have considered Ignis in that way?

“When did you turn the light off?”

A slight shift, the rub of fabric - a shrug? “A while ago.”

Ignis can’t help but smile, a little wryly. “How long have you been in the dark?” he asks.

“A while,” Noctis admits.

It’s a charming image, really, when Ignis thinks about it. Noctis sitting placidly in the darkening room, waiting for the opportunity to bring up this absurd request, making sure that it’s one that Ignis can indulge.

And that’s enough to convince him.

He slowly lifts his hands to his face, running a finger absently along the severe, unyielding edge of the frames. But Noctis is asking him to take off the visor, and it’s safe to do so, so he does. He carefully sets the frames down on his desk and avoids anything that could be misconstrued as eye contact. Without the visor, he feels dreadfully off-balance. Anyone could walk in. Anyone could see him. Anyone could start some rumor, and then the whispers would continue.

There may not be light, but there’s a stinging awareness of his vulnerability. Physical harm is not the thing that Ignis fears the most.

Not anymore.

“Let me try something,” Noct says softly. When did he get so close? Ignis hadn’t heard him approach.

Ignis tilts his head up, staring towards where Noctis must be. “What would that be?”

“Healing. Magical healing.”

“Magical healing,” Ignis repeats in a monotone. Fanciful things. What is Noct thinking?

“Like at the lake.”

“The last time I checked, Noct, I didn’t have a wasting sickness. Has that changed?”

“Ignis, c’mon. I want to try to heal your eyes.”

He can’t help it - he recoils. “My eyes,” he repeats, aware of the harshness that has crept into his voice. The vulnerability.

“I just wanted to try. To help.”

“And you think you can use magic. Whatever magic it was that healed that child.”

“Astral magic, Ignis. Wild magic.”

“Wild magic.” Haven’t the gods cursed Ignis enough? Haven’t they doomed Noctis to die to do their bidding, only to allow Ignis to drag him back screaming? Haven’t they allowed Ignis to be blinded? And the burning-

But Noct is earnest. “I did it, and I didn’t know I could. But I _can,_ and there’s magic here. In me. So I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. Why not do something with all this magic I have? The gods must have given it to me for a reason. And if anyone deserves the magic, it’s you.”

Truly? Ignis is no royal figure, no heir to a legendary family name. He can work effectively without his sight; he has been for months now. Has he not been enough for Noctis? Has he not been working to his potential? Has he let Noctis down?

“It won’t work,” he says instead, because he would never voice those fears aloud.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because nothing is ever that easy, Noct.” Would that it were.

“Haven’t you seen enough miracles to believe that this could work?”

“That was back when magic was alive.”

“I have the magic,” Noctis insists. “You were there. You know what happened. You believe in evidence, right? You have your evidence. You have to believe that this can work.”

It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of hope.

“Noctis, I...I don’t know.” He doesn’t. For once, he doesn’t have the answers.

“Here,” Noctis says, a little desperately. “Let me try.”

And then he draws closer to Ignis, almost towering above him, and he sinks down on the plush carpet, kneeling before Ignis in the sunset of the office.

Ignis wishes, wildly, that he could see it.

“You shouldn’t be on your knees,” Ignis tells him instead, trying to hide the tremors in his voice. “Not for me.”

“Why not?” Noctis asks, voice soft and raw and curious.

Ignis swallows. “You’re the king. My king.” Duty is first. Duty is always, always first. That is how it’s always been and how it always should be.

“I am,” Noctis agrees. “So bow.”

It reminds him of the throne room; of playful commands frozen in time; of them both realizing that something has changed between them that goes beyond the bond of friends, of king and chamberlain. It sounds like Noctis knows what he’s doing now. It sounds like Noctis knows what he does to Ignis.

Ignis bows his head nonetheless, staring down at the king he cannot see but will always sense, will always know. He holds his breath, but he’s not sure why.

And then Noctis raises his hands and places them carefully on Ignis’s face, gentle and warm and entirely unexpected.

“Hold still,” Noct tells him, impossibly close, “and keep your eye open.”

Ignis blinks, slowly, but he keeps his gaze focused downward.

But Noctis is taking his time.

His thumb swipes across Ignis’s cheekbone, running across scar tissue and unblemished skin alike. The contrasting sensations of half-dead nerves and hypersensitive skin makes Ignis shiver against his will, but Noctis doesn’t dwell too long at that border. The searing heat of his touch doesn’t stop there; his thumb follows the path to the angles of Ignis’s nose and down to his lips, thoughtfully tracing the corner of his mouth.

Ignis wishes he could see the way Noctis is looking at him right now. He can feel Noct’s gaze focused on him with a curious intensity, probing him for a reaction.

He would pull away, but something in the gentleness of Noct’s touch keeps him captive.

And then Noct’s hands - have they always been so callused? How much has Ignis missed in ten years of blindness? - move up to frame his face, thumbs firmly set at the outer corners of his eyes.

And then-

There’s a thrill of warmth from Noct’s hands, and suddenly everything in Ignis’s mind goes scarlet.

He can’t quite describe it. It’s exactly the way that Noct has told him it is: wild, feral, and brutally hot, like a burning that builds instead of destroying. It reminds Ignis of pushing a car under Leide’s searing sun, of the heat of battle, of flushing scarlet in the throne room when told to bow.

It’s briefly, beautifully, like how it had been. For a heartbeat, all Ignis is aware of is the sound of Noct’s breathing and the overwhelming _closeness_ of it all. He hasn’t felt this since the dawn. He didn’t realize how much his entire body has yearned for the touch of magic.

And for a moment, it’s beautiful.

But the world stays dark.

For a few heartbeats, just shards of seconds, they sit like that in a fading tableau, just a king and his chamberlain, locked together by touch and magic. Noctis is breathing harder than he had been, and Ignis is scarcely breathing at all. Everything around them is warm and smells like ozone. And then Ignis realizes that the magic has failed, and that he is still blind.

He doesn’t know how to feel. Disappointed? Perhaps that’s what it should be. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t felt the fleeting hope for a miracle, sharing Noct’s optimism for a quiet, breathless moment.

Slowly, Noctis removes his hands from Ignis’s face, leaving his skin cold and sending a shiver down his spine. “I don’t know what happened,” he says softly. “Ignis-”

“It’s fine,” Ignis interrupts. He offers a small smile down to Noctis. “You tried your best.”

“But it didn’t work,” Noctis spits, voice full of rising fury.

Would Ignis have felt this frustrated if the phoenix down hadn’t worked? Would he have raged against the gods for denying him their magic when he craved it most?

“Noctis,” he tries.

“No,” Noctis snaps. “No, come on. Be angry at me.”

Maybe, if Ignis were a more spiteful person, he would be angry. Maybe, if he’d allowed himself more than a heartbeat of hope, he’d resent Noctis for convincing him that he could see again. But instead, he just feels resigned, and he already misses the magical communion between them. “I’m not angry,” he tells Noctis.

“You should be.”

“I’m not.”

“Why not?”

Ignis shrugs. “Because you tried.”

“But it didn’t work.” Noctis almost growls with the force of his disappointment. “Before, it was like...like filling a bowl with water. But with you, I-” He cuts himself off with a frustrated sound. “There’s no Scourge to be eliminated, or a void to fill. It’s just...you.” The way he says the word sends chills racing along Ignis’s arms. “I can’t change you.”

Softly, because something in his mind tells him that Noct will break if he yells, Ignis asks, “Does that disappoint you?”

“It’s not about how I feel.”

“It can be,” Ignis says. “I’ve felt the same way for ten years. I’ve grown used to it. For you, it’s still new.”

“All I wanted,” Noctis says, voice sounding impossibly young and broken and sad. “All I wanted was to heal you.”

 _Oh, Noct._ “All you wanted?” he asks gently.

Noct repeats, firmly, “I just wanted to heal you.”

“I had ten years to heal. Ten years of waiting. Perhaps time is what I needed.”

“Ten years. In the dark. Blind.”

“Everyone was in the dark, Noct. My darkness just happened to be darker.”

“You had to learn how to be yourself again.”

“I did.”

There are different types of darkness. The cool darkness of a starlit night, the suffocating darkness of a cave without flashlights; the comforting darkness of a tent, surrounded by the softly breathing bodies of his dearest friends. And then there’s the chilling darkness of blindness, with the knowledge that the long-awaited daylight will only ever be a feeling. And the worst darkness, the darkness he can’t ignore by closing his eyes, is the gnawing poison that still lurks in some ugly corners of his heart, whispering to him of inadequacy and humiliation. Ignis has known all of this darkness. He has stumbled through quarries and fallen in the streets and woken up screaming in a ruined world that sought only to remind him of what he’d lost. He has known all of the darkness, and more. He still knows it, an old friend that sinks its poisonous claws into his heart.

And still, still, he’s made it. He’s learned.

“I did,” Ignis repeats, because that feels like validation, and like pride. Even now, still blind and without his visor in a darkened room, he thinks that maybe he can feel a little proud. With Noctis here, watching him with a magic-warm gaze, on his knees before Ignis, maybe he can feel a little more like he is still worth something. “I did, and I’m blind, but I’m myself. The Ignis you’ve always known.”

“Ignis,” Noctis murmurs, and his name sounds curious from Noct’s lips, like even the words are stained with the magic running through his scorched veins.

“If you would let me,” Ignis offers, heart thumping in his chest, “I’d like to show you how I _do_ see the faces of those I care for. Or at least get an idea.”

“How you see,” Noctis echoes, and then he seems to come back to himself, voice losing its dreamlike color. “Yeah. Yes. Of course.”

So this is it. Ignis carefully, slowly, reaches out his hands, unsure of how quickly to go. Noctis isn’t some caged animal, but he might as well be, kneeling quietly and carefully before Ignis, full of barely leashed power. Feral and regal.

“May I?” he asks softly.

Noctis draws back a little bit, leaving the air between them cold. “My face?”

“Did you expect me to use my eyes, Noctis?”

“I just - I just never gave much thought to how this would work.”

“I practiced on Gladio and Prompto over the years. The memory of their faces is strong enough that I was able to feel their faces and recognize the shapes I encountered.” He chuckles. “I was horrible at first. I kept poking Prompto in the eye.”

“You? Bad at something?” There’s a laugh in Noctis’s voice now, soft and still a little sad.

“Trust me,” Ignis assures him. “Besides, the only reason why you think I’m good at everything is merely that I perfect something before I dare show you.”

“Always the perfectionist,” Noctis teases quietly, and the humor in there tells Ignis that he can continue. Noctis leans forward as well, bringing his chin to knock gently against Ignis’s wandering wrist.

Ignis takes a deep breath and moves, placing his hands on Noct’s face.

For a moment, he just adjusts to the feeling of skin and bones beneath his fingers. Noctis lets him, and he sits quietly beneath Ignis’s questing touch. _It’s just like reading,_ Ignis tells himself, _only in a different script._

What can he read from his king’s features?

“Noctis,” he murmurs, because he can’t help himself.

He has a noble face.

That much, he knows. He may not be able to create a perfect picture in his mind, but he can get the broad strokes of it from his senses. There are angles to his jaw that hadn’t been there before. Ignis has heard enough from the others to know that Noctis has adopted so much of the look of his father, all refined power and regal grace. It’s evident in the way that Noctis speaks to Citadel employees, and in the low rasp of his voice that reminds Ignis of the power of King Regis. There’s no hint of a formal accent in Noct’s words, but that just brings back old memories of his voice before the Night. He’s such an odd mix of old and new, all at once foreign to Ignis and incredibly familiar.

All this time, and he’d never known who Noctis had become.

He can feel the change in little places: here, the square angle of his chin, broadened after ten years of slumber. There, a small scar that Ignis had never noticed. There, along the right side of his face, his skin turns all at once rough and soft, curiously burnt under his fingers. Ignis knows the feeling of his own scars, but there’s something different about Noct’s. Something ethereal; something not of this world. Something magical.

Noctis’s breath hitches when Ignis runs careful fingers across the scars. There are tendrils of phantom warmth here that must follow the trail of the magic the gods have given to Noctis. It’s as if the magic of the Ring had burned a new home for the gods beneath his skin. Unable to be contained just in the spot in his heart where the Crystal’s magic had lived, the gods’ wild magic had taken a more visceral route. It makes sense, at least, that the gods would manifest their power in the flesh of someone worthy. And now Ignis is here, feeling the magic that runs just beneath his king’s skin.

This man isn’t the Noctis he’d known. He isn’t the slim, youthful prince of the days of Ignis’s sight. He’s a king now, jaded and wounded by the gods and grief and Ignis himself. But he’s still Noct. He will always be Noct.

“You’ve changed,” Ignis murmurs. “So much, but not at all.”

“Not at all?”

“You’re still Noct.”

Noctis chuckles softly, sending gentle vibrations down into Ignis’s fingers. “It’s good to hear.”

Ignis smiles in return, lightly tapping a thumb against the solid curve of Noct’s cheekbone. “Would that I could see your eyes,” he says absently, before his words have fully solidified in his mind. He winces a bit, feeling his cheeks flush.

“Your eyes-” Noctis starts, frustrated.

“I didn’t mean to rub salt in that particular wound, Noct. It’s more of a general desire than one inspired by today’s events.”

“A general desire,” Noctis snorts, blowing a puff of warm air across Ignis’s fingers. “So eloquent.”

“Merely the truth.”

“You seem to focus a lot on the truth,” Noctis tells him, “and what’s real and what’s not.”

“I like to know the facts.”

“And now you know the facts about me.”

“You see?” Ignis asks, smiling. “Even in the absence of sight, I know you.”

He was raised to know Noctis in every way, to understand his needs before they could ever be voiced. He was raised to be the one person who knew the king best. So this? Knowing Noctis without the aid of sight?

It’s his favorite thing he’s ever learned.

Noctis turns his head a bit, pressing his face into Ignis’s left hand, sending phantom warmth into Ignis’s fingers. “Tell me what you know,” he says quietly.

How could he possibly start? How can he sum up thirty years of learning into a simple list of words? How can he tell Noct who he sees him as?

_Prince, king, friend, partner, comrade, lo-_

No.

There’s no place here for idle fantasies. Not now, when Noctis is vulnerable and quiet in Ignis’s hands. There are other times for words like that. Besides, this office has never been good for them to truly speak their hearts. Ignis pushes those wild thoughts aside and instead focuses on the words in his mind. Knowledge has always been his strength. He knows Noctis. He knows this.

“I know you are Noctis.” An obvious fact, but an easy one to calm his frantic mind. “I know you have gone through hurts and trials I can never imagine. I know you have magic in your veins. I know that you have died, and I know that you have come alive, and I know that you have tried to die once more. I know that I have held your hands, through it all.” In the throne room, in the bathroom, in the sunlight by the pond. Noct’s touch is a comfort now, and a welcome escape.

“I know that you are my oldest friend. I know that I have been devoted to you since I first met you.”

“We were children,” Noctis murmurs.

“I know that, too,” Ignis replies. “And I know that we both remember those children, and the memories they shared. And I know that you are a king now. I know that you are my king.”

“Your king.”

“My king,” Ignis repeats. And then, because his mouth betrays his aching heart, “My Noctis.”

“You know all that?”

Ignis smiles, and he feels his right eye crinkling at the corners. “All of that, and more,” he promises.

Again, there’s that curious electricity between them; that restless magnetism that seems to always be pulling them together. Noct’s face is so close. He’s still sitting still in Ignis’s grasp, jaw relaxed and face unlined by stress beneath his fingers. Moving any closer would be as natural as breathing. As natural as falling asleep. As natural as magic.

“Come now,” he urges, breaking their fragile tension and returning air to their lungs. “Off your knees.”

Noctis huffs out another breath, but he carefully extracts himself from Ignis’s grasp and stands to his full height, unfolding his limbs with the sound of rustling clothes and faintly cracking joints. He settles on Ignis’s desk instead, perching on it like a bird, legs knocking against Ignis’s where they hang down.

Ignis blinks up at where he expects Noct’s face to be. “Are you a healer now? Is that the kind of king you wish to be?”

Noctis hums for a moment, seeming to be working the sentiment over in his mind. “He was a healer, you know.”

“He was.” They don’t need to say his name. That name has no power here; they won’t give him the courtesy of identity in a world under the sun. “You’re not him.”

Noctis sighs. “No. I’m not him.”

“What do you want to be?”

“The king I want to be. I just don’t know who he is yet.” Noct shifts, and the searing searchlight of his gaze falls on Ignis. “I hoped you could help with that.”

And then his hand finds Ignis’s, twining a few of their fingers together atop the desk. Ignis quietly inhales at the touch, but he lets it happen. Noct’s fingers are warm with tension and magic under his touch, both familiar and new but still undeniably his king; his Noct.

It’s not their old magic. The magic of the Crystal had been as familiar to Ignis as breathing, as familiar Noct’s smile. The dawn had given him Noctis at the cost of the power in the center of his heart. And that power had been warm, and familiar, and the same shade of crystalline blue of Noct’s eyes.

And yet.

When the magic had disappeared, the warmth had remained.

And Noctis had woken up.

“I can help with that,” Ignis tells him, because he knows that the warmth is more than magic and that his heart is telling him he doesn’t need a phantom power to hold the two of them together.

He doesn’t need the sight. He doesn’t need the magic. Noctis is enough for him in this world. He may not be able to see the sun anymore, but Noct brought back the light, and that’s enough to hold back the creeping darkness. For today, or for a year, or for more.

He doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Midterms are over! I'm excited to get back into this fic once more. As you may have noticed, I've finally put in the final chapter count. Home stretch!


	22. prompto.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balance.

Today’s going to be a good day.

It’s time. It’s finally, finally time. Prompto paces in quick little circles around Cor, tapping out a nervous rhythm with his feet and crutch. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“It’s your decision,” Cor tells him. “Are you ready for this?”

Prompto swallows, trying to smother the fluttering fear in his chest. “I’m ready.” He stops in front of Cor, blinking up at him.

The Marshal watches him with curious, bright eyes, standing still in the chilly Citadel hallway. Winter sunlight filters in from nearby windows, casting his looming shadow over the dark marble. The sun catches the streaks of silver in his short, dark hair, making him look more human than usual. Less immortal, for once.

He must catch Prompto looking. “Something on my face?” he asks wryly.

“Nope,” Prompto quickly replies. “Just looking.” He doesn’t tell Cor that he was looking for some point of similarity between the two of them. Maybe not necessarily in looks - that’s impossible; after all, Prompto knows where he’s from - but maybe in the way they carry themselves. Maybe Prompto’s picked up on some of Cor’s stance. They’re both soldiers, after all. Maybe Prompto’s adopting some of Cor’s tendencies. If not the immortal part, then maybe the hardiness. The acceptance.

He hopes that one day he can hold his shoulders with the same pride that Cor does.

Cor tilts his head to the side, as if he can read Prompto’s mind. “Come on. Monica and Dustin are waiting downstairs.”

“Didn’t know Monica used guns.”

“Monica can do a lot of things. She’s good that way.” Even Cor sounds distantly impressed. Not for the first time, Prompto realizes that he’s never seen Monica fight. He’d split off with Ignis that time ten years ago when they’d taken out the imperial base with Monica and Cor.

“Hm,” Prompto says instead of really answering, and he starts off down the hallway. Cor falls into step beside him, eyes alert.

The two of them get a few sidelong looks as they traverse the hallways, but Prompto doesn’t notice as much pity in them as he used to. Maybe it’s just Cor’s presence, but Prompto likes to think that they’re a little in awe of him too.

“Noct has astral magic now,” Prompto tells him. “Have you heard?”

Cor raises an eyebrow, but his gaze stays focused ahead. It’s not easy to draw Cor’s attention away from his targets. “Is that the news now?”

“It is.”

“What kind of magic?”

“Astral magic, Cor.”

“No, Prompto. What does he do with the magic?” Cor flexes one of his hands at his sides. “Is it elemental? Combat?”

“Healing, actually.”

“Healing,” Cor repeats.

Prompto glances over at him. “Expecting something else?”

“No.” There’s a hint of a smile in Cor’s voice, like he knows something that Prompto doesn’t. “It’s just surprising. It’s not like the astrals to give gifts like that.”

“Maybe it’s a reward,” Prompto suggests. “For Noct doing...all that. Dying.”

Cor snorts. “Succinct. How do you feel about it?”

Prompto shrugs. “It’s cool that he’s got it. Good for him.” What he doesn’t tell Cor is that he’s jealous of that little bit of magic that Noctis got to keep. He doesn’t hate Noct for it, of course; Noct is his best friend, and if anyone deserves magic it’s him. But, well. He misses it. He misses belonging. 

The two of them round the corner and head into the elevator. Cor presses the button for the lower floor, and the elevator chimes out an affirmative, descending with an easy swiftness.

“You’re shaking,” Cor notes, voice loud in the closeness of the elevator. He’s not even looking at Prompto.

Prompto looks down at his hands. And yeah. They’re twitching a bit. He frowns. “Just nervous, I think.”

“That’s okay. It’s been a while.”

“It has.”

The elevator slides open, chiming softly to let them know it’s reached their floor. Prompto steps out carefully, trying not to catch the end of his crutch in the gap between the elevator and the floor - an experience he’d rather not relive - and stands in the hallway, looking up and down it. He’s - he’s, well. Not sure where to go.

Cor’s hand on his shoulder points him to the right. “This way.”

“Right,” Prompto blusters, and he allows himself to be led down the hall. “Been a while.”

“That’s right,” Cor replies amiably, and he doesn’t say anything beyond that. Prompto appreciates it.

They come to the door at the end of the hall. It’s a bland, drab gray, embossed only with the faint sigil of the Crownsguard in royal black. It’s very unassuming for a door that Prompto’s been avoiding for so long.

Well, no longer.

“Here we go,” Prompto says, more to himself than to Cor, and he pushes open the door to the gun range.

Monica and Dustin are in there already, speaking quietly to each other beside the stalls at the range. They look up when the door opens, falling quiet. 

“Hey!” Prompto calls, entering the room with a smile. “Dustin.” He holds out a hand.

Dustin takes it and smiles - a rare sight nowadays. “Prompto. Good to see you down here.”

“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Prompto replies, looking around the range. It’s just like he remembers it, from what little he does remember of his sparing few days of self defense training before leaving Insomnia ten years ago. It smells like gunsmoke and oil. It smells like home.

“Prompto,” Monica greets him warmly. She walks up to him and Prompto immediately holds out his arms to hug her. She raises an eyebrow but her smile doesn’t fade, and she gives him a quick hug to say hello.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Prompto says once they part.

Monica sighs. “I’ve been busy with training. Lestallum still needs me, so I’ve been traveling back and forth as well.”

“Sucks.” Prompto grimaces. “Glad you’re back. For now, at least.”

“For now,” she agrees. “And for now, we’d like to help you get back on your feet.” She gestures to the side

They’ve set everything up for him. 

His pistols sit side by side in one of the stalls, glinting up at him with a shine of steel and silver. Prompto’d given Cor permission to get them from his room where he’s kept them for ages, hiding them away until he was ready.

He thinks he’s ready now.

Even though it’s been months since he’s really, truly held them, the guns feel warm under his touch, and achingly familiar. Sure, it’s true that he’s always loved machines. Trooper or not, it’s Prompto who picks up the guns, regardless of the barcode Niflheim has given him. The love hasn’t diminished, and he smiles before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Cor’s eyes crinkle a bit. “There it is,” he says.

Prompto blushes. 

He puts down one of the pistols, carefully turning the other one over in his hands. “Is it cleaned?” It certainly looks like it. 

“We took care of that,” Dustin promises.

His hands look cool like this, wrapped around the silvery metal of his favorite pistol. He’s never been one to ignore a good photo opportunity, and he captures the image in his mind for later: the soft light of the gun range illuminates his skin in a gentle yellow-white, turning his veins to scarlet in stark contrast to the cool pale metal of the gun. It’d make a good photo. It’ll make an even better memory.

He places the gun down carefully and turns towards Cor, awaiting further instruction. Old habits die hard; here in the Crownsguard gun range, he will always be a soldier. He will always defer to Cor. “Thank you,” he breathes. This is the catharsis he’s been waiting for.

Cor nods towards the guns. “Load them.”

Dustin and Monica give him similar looks, expectant but patient. Prompto blinks at them, trying to process Cor’s words. Okay. Load the guns. He can do that. He carefully turns back to the guns and picks up the first one, staring down at the shining, unyielding curve of it. Metal. Machine. 

Okay, so this is the harder part. Cleaning is just like being a mechanic. Loading is treating the gun like a weapon. Treating himself like a weapon. 

_ I am not what they made me. _

It’s a soothing mantra to think about. Cor had said it would help to think about it whenever his thoughts threatened to overwhelm him, and he’s right. It grounds him. It reminds him of the first gun in his hands, solid and heavy. He carefully slips bullets into the cylinder in a soft cascade, letting the cylinder spin as he does so. Actions like this are as simple as breathing. It’s clean and clinical and Prompto finds an idle comfort in counting the rounds as he loads them, tallying the numbers in bronze in his mind. 

He slides the cylinder back into place when he’s done, relishing the metallic slide and click of the simple machinery of the pistol. 

“On your mark,” Cor tells him, and that brings up old memories of Ignis calling  _ On your mark, Noct,  _ and for a moment it’s almost like Prompto is young again. And then he’s standing in the gun range with Cor, Monica, and Dustin, and they’re asking him to shoot a gun.

He aims. 

He fires.

He misses.

Prompto frowns down at the target. It’s not even that far. Has he really gotten that rusty? He takes aim, quietly inhales, and aims downrange again. Trigger finger steady. Another breath, another heartbeat, and his finger squeezes down carefully on the trigger.

The gun kicks back at him.

He misses.

Prompto growls a bit, surprised. He clenches his hands tighter around the gun, wishing that he could shatter it into the armiger and hide from it. He can do this tomorrow. He can do this some other time. Isn’t enough that he’s held the guns and loaded them?

“You’re just rusty,” Cor says from behind him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Prompto says, trying to keep his voice light, but all he really wants to do is crawl into his bed and hide for a while. The target isn’t even that far. He’s had ten years of experience; what’s holding him back now?

He tries to think of Noct’s voice. Noct would help him laugh it off. Noct would tell him that he could do it.

“Hey.”

Prompto jumps, because that  _ is _ Noct’s voice. “What the  _ fuck. _ ” He whirls to face the person whose voice has just come from inches away.

It’s Noctis.

“You don’t do that at a  _ gun range,  _ Noct!” Prompto cries. He gestures wildly at Noct, gaping at Cor. “You just let him do that?”

Cor shrugs. “You were pointing it down range. Besides, I know you’re trained. It was a good test of your instincts.”

Prompto points a shaking finger at Cor. “I hate you,” he declares.

Cor blinks, unperturbed.

Monica turns her head to hide a laugh in her shoulder.

“And you!” Prompto yells, a little louder, rounding on Noctis again. “You thought that was a good decision? I could have shot you!”

Noctis shrugs. “You didn’t.” There’s that flippant smugness, so casual, fitting Noct like a second skin. Gods, Prompto loves it. And hates it.

Prompto grumbles a bit but doesn’t argue. Instead, he settles for studying Noct, trying to parse out the reason for his appearance. He’s not wearing a suit today, so he must not be meeting anyone important. Instead, he’s in something that looks a bit more like what he used to wear, just an easy balance of comfortable fabric and angular style. It’s not quite the look that his old fatigues used to give him, but it’s easily functional. Prompto’s pretty sure that he’s seen Noct wear those boots before; they look suspiciously battle-worn.

He nods at the shoes. “Feeling nostalgic?”

Noctis frowns down at his feet. “I thought they still fit pretty well.”

“Do kings wear boots?”

“This one does.” But Noct’s brow is still creased in worry. His gaze flicks back up to meet Prompto’s with wide mismatched eyes. “Do I look bad?”

“No!” Prompto promises. “No, you look like yourself.” And he does. Of course he’s chosen to wear all black, with snug pants and a simple shirt with a golden skull pattern. There’s a leathery-looking jacket over the whole ensemble. Noct would wear this at any age, frankly. In an odd way, the crown of kings would actually look good on him like this, curving with the same lazy elegance out from the dark fringe of his hair. It’s a shame he hasn’t been coronated yet.

Noct tugs at the end of one of his sleeves, tugging it down over his burn-scarred hand. “If you say so.”

“I know so.” Prompto tilts his head to the side. “Why are you here, though?”

“Day off. Ignis is out with Gladio and Iris today. Monica told me you’d be coming down here, so.” He spreads his hands in a sort of ‘here I am’ gesture. 

Prompto lets out a nervous little laugh. “Really came at a bad time for me, buddy.”

Noct’s eyes flick to the gun in Prompto’s hand. “First time?”

“Yeah. Months.”

“Having trouble?”

“I can’t-” He shakes the gun a little, making a wordless sound of frustration. “You know?”

“I can imagine.” Noctis studies Prompto’s form for a second. “You’re tense. You’re nervous about shooting again.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Prompto asks incredulously. The last time he’d shot a gun, he’d lost a leg and Noctis had died.

“You’re right.” Noct’s small smile falters for a second. “I only have my dad’s sword.”

_ Oh.  _ Yeah, he’d almost forgotten. “Right,” he stammers.

“Yeah.” Noct’s brow furrows as he thinks for a second. “Hey, Prom, can I try something?”

Prompto shrugs. “Sure, I guess.”

Noct gestures to the gun. “Pick it up.”

Slowly, Prompto raises the gun back into position, trying desperately to fix his grip, but his fingers feel foreign on his favorite pistol. “Okay,” he says, hoping that his nerves don’t make his voice waver.

“Okay.” Noctis takes a deep breath, and in Prompto’s periphery he closes his eyes for a moment, only to snap them open again in a flash of blue and scarlet. “Prompto,” he says, voice suddenly curt and commanding and kingly. “Piercer.”

_ Oh. _

He hasn’t heard that in years.

Techniques like that have always been Noct’s; they will always be Noct’s. The three of them had fought as a team during the Night, but the old commands had never fallen easily from their lips. The techniques are a personal thing, built up over battles and practice and the fluid intimacy of battle. Each of them and Noct. Without a king to call the shots, they’d quietly stopped mentioning them, and they’d adopted new strategies to fill the space where Noct should be. Ten years, though, have done nothing to dim the memory. 

The instinct is still there.

His stance shifts almost automatically. He leans back a bit, keeping the gun low, adjusting his grip into something that feels infinitely more comfortable. And of course this is how he used to hold his gun; how had he forgotten? When he aims, it’s not so much with his eyes as with his muscles. And it feels so natural to pull the trigger now that Noct’s turned him back into the fighter he had been.

_ All in bullet time. _

The bullet strikes the target in the head.

Gods, he almost whistles.

For a few seconds after the shot goes off, they all stand in silence, deathly quiet after the savage crack of the gun. Prompto can’t believe it. Noct can’t believe it. It actually worked.

Then Prompto pumps his fist in the air. “Yes!” he whoops, and he sets the gun down and whirls to punch Noct on the shoulder. “Dude!”

“Prom,” Noct half-whines, but he’s smiling.

“You did it!” Prompto continues, because if any moment calls for this kind of exuberance, it’s right now, when everything is genuine and his heart is pounding with an exhilaration he hasn’t felt since the sun was dead. He slings an arm around Noct’s shoulders, tugging him close. 

“I think it was you who did it,” Noct tells him matter-of-factly, smile turning lazy and easy and overwhelmingly  _ Noct. _

“Bah,” Prompto says, waving him off. “All you, buddy.”

“Cor!” he yells. “Did you see that?”

Noctis winces. “I  _ heard _ that,” he grumbles, trying to pull away from being right next to Prompto’s mouth.

Cor just smiles -  _ really  _ smiles - and says, “Yes, Prompto. Excellent work.”

Prompto grins. “Thanks, Cor.”

Privately, though, Prompto squeezes Noct’s shoulder. Just a bit. Just enough to let him know.

_ Thank you. _

Noctis knows. That unspoken language is as familiar to them as the fluid instincts of the techniques. They’ve always been pretty good at reading each other.

Cor urges him through a few more trials at varying distances, switching out targets and implementing moving ones as well. Prompto doesn’t hit them all, and sometimes the ones he hits aren’t lethal shots, but he likes to think that he’s done a decent job with it. Cor seems impressed with him, at least, and that's enough. Noct's quiet approval and little comments, rather than annoying or distracting Prompto, only serve to focus him. It reminds him of how things had been, and he hopes that he can get like that again one day. 

After nearly an hour of practice, Cor stops him and resets the targets, setting them up in triplicate. He gestures to Prompto and the others. “You and Monica and Dustin. Shoot off.”

“Criteria?” Dustin asks curtly, stepping up to the stall beside Prompto and loading the guns that are placed there. He’s got the easy efficiency of a professional.

Cor says, “First to five fatal shots. Winner is first to win thrice.”

“That all?” Monica laughs, but there’s no malice in her voice. There’s only that calm, contented lilt that she does so well. She goes to Prompto’s other side and picks up her own pistol; it’s a black one, edged in gold on the grip. Privately, Prompto’s a little jealous. That’s a really nice gun. Perks of being one of the best and brightest of the Crownsguard, and a reconnaissance expert besides.

“My money’s on Prompto,” Noctis offers.

Prompto barks out a laugh. “Don’t push your luck, buddy.”

But he squares his stance nonetheless. 

Before Cor calls the beginning of the match, Noct leans over and whispers in his ear, too quietly for anyone else to hear, “Trigger happy, okay?”

Prompto grins.

Monica wins twice.

Dustin wins once.

Prompto wins three times in a row.

When Prompto sets down his pistols, already missing the feeling of them warm in his hands, he grins over at Noct. “How was that?”

Noct nods. “Just what I thought would happen.” 

“Just need you and Gladio and Iggy and it’ll be like old times,” Prompto jokes, smiling. And yeah, it’s lighthearted, but. Well. He  _ wants _ that.

Noct seems to as well. He nods again, slower, and something like longing glimmers in the stormy depths of his blue eyes. There’s the Noctis that Prompto grew up with. There’s the Noctis that remembers every command. There’s the Noctis whose voice still can remind Prompto of what it had been like to be part of a team. “Just like old times,” Noct repeats. “I like that.”

Prompto does too.

“I, uh.” Prompto gestures to Cor, hoping that he’ll get the message. “As much as this was fun, I uh. I need to move.” The guns are great, but now that he has them, he wants to  _ really _ use them, to run and slide and stumble his way through the motions of battle. The excitement is turning into restless energy in his limbs, traveling from his fingers to his arms and down his spine to his toes. He rocks on his heels, relishing the momentum that his prosthetic affords him. He needs to stay in motion if he wants to drain this energy from his limbs.

Cor nods. “Put down the guns. They’ll get taken care of. We can go to the exercise room for walking.”

“Walking?” Prompto whines.

“You wanted to move.”

“But walking’s so  _ draining. _ ”

“We’ll make it not be. Practice makes perfect, Prompto.”

He’s right, of course. “Wanna come?” Prompto asks, turning to Noct.

Noct makes a face that says something to the effect of  _ no. _ “Ignis just texted,” he says by way of explanation. Well, at least he has the tact to look guilty.

Prompto grins. Noct’s never gonna hear the end of this. “Understood. Tell Iggy I say hi.”

“Sorry.”

“Go,” Prompto urges. “We’ll catch up later. If you’re lucky, I might even come by and play King’s Knight.” He winks. “If you aren’t too busy.” He waggles his eyebrows as best he can, and Noct’s face breaks into a smile that makes his eyes crinkle.

“Tonight,” Noctis promises. “And I hate you.” He’s already backing away. His eyes dart down to check his phone again, and his smile turns soft for a moment. Then he turns his gaze to Cor, Monica, and Dustin. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Cor merely nods, but Monica and Dustin both give a quick fist-to-chest salute with twin murmurs of “Majesty.”

Noct sighs. “Come on. I’m Noctis to you guys.”

“No chance,” Prompto says, leaning against the wall. “They’re Crownsguard through and through. And you’re the king.”

“I know that.” Noct waves a hand. “Next time you guys do that, I’m going to order you to stop saluting.”

Monica snorts. “You’re certainly more unorthodox than your father.”

Noct shrugs, and for once the mention of King Regis doesn’t send a shadow across his eyes. “New king, new rules,” he offers by way of explanation, and then he’s out the door.

Prompto stares at the door long after he’s gone. “Well,” he says.

“He seemed happy,” Cor says, voicing what they’ve all been thinking.

“Yeah,” Prompto says faintly. His hands are shaking now. “C’mon, Cor. Let’s go.”

The walk to their exercise room doesn’t take long, even with Prompto as fidgety as he is. He can go pretty quickly on the crutch nowadays.

Cor starts him on some upper body work, ordering him to do pullups at a bar on the wall. He stands and counts out the reps as Prompto does them, keeping up a steady pace.

Gladio was right, as it turns out. Working out gives him some sense of peace, where all he can think about is the movement he’s making, focusing on the feeling of his muscles working to hold him together. The exertion starts to sap the electric energy from his limbs, calming the anxious shaking that he gets sometimes. It’s a calming rhythm that he picks up, guided by Cor’s constant, steady counting.

The counting gives him peace. He really does like the numbers.

When he’s done with his reps - of which there are many, thanks to Cor’s influence - he takes a chance and drops to the ground. He half-expects to tumble and fall immediately, but he braces himself and lands on his feet. Both feet. 

“That was bold.”

Prompto laughs and looks down at his legs, chest heaving with the exertion and with shock. And yeah, there’s the gleam of his metal leg at the ankle, flexed just like his flesh and blood one. It caught him. It actually worked. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, I, uh. Took a chance there.”

Cor makes a noise that sounds like approval. “Well. Ready to walk?”

Prompto nods. “Let’s do it.”

Cor leads him over to the double set of rails in the room, acting as a support in the absence of Prompto’s crutch. Carefully, he positions Prompto at the beginning of the long path, making sure that his hands are firmly on the bars. “Ready?”

Prompto adjusts his grip on the rails and shifts his weight, trying to stand with the prosthetic leg. “Ready.”

He makes it...ten paces. Maybe. Then his mind forgets how to communicate with his legs, and he falls off balance.

"It's too much," Prompto gasps, clutching at the hand rails.

"No, it's not," Cor tells him.

Prompto glares over at him. He's not really making this much better. Cor, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, shrugs. It almost looks like he smiles, the bastard. Prompto asks, “Why don’t you try doing this stuff?”

“I already have. Now I can help you.”

“Great,” Prompto grits out. He takes another step with his left leg, then steps forward with the right one, grunting with the effort of it. It had seemed so simple to be able to walk Especially now that he’s weakened by the departure of the Scourge and by months off his feet, every movement takes a lot out of him. His muscles will take awhile to get back into their old condition. Maybe they never will.

Prompto doesn’t like to dwell on that too much.

He prefers the here and now, with Cor watching him teach himself how to walk again. Of course he’s not  _ just _ watching; he’s coaching Prompto as well, leading him through the motions. There are exercises to build up muscle strength once more, and Cor is quite fond of putting him through those grueling upper body strength exercises that leave Prompto’s arms trembling. But there are some steps Prompto needs to take by himself. Today happens to be all about reclaiming things he’s lost. First the guns. Now the leg.

The leg has become far more comfortable as Prompto’s grown used to it. It’s hard to keep up the movement of walking, though. The leg is responsive, but he’s still not entirely used to putting his weight on something he can’t quite feel. Lately he’s been working on phasing out the crutch entirely so that he can start walking on his own again. It’s hard to keep his balance, and even harder to keep up the stamina to move for long distances, but he’s working on it.

Cor seems to have decided that he’s been standing still for too long. He pushes off from the wall and walks over to Prompto. “Still awake?” he asks.

“I’d rather be in bed. Asleep.”

“I’m sure.”

Prompto glares at him. He doesn’t mean it. Not really.

“Come on,” Cor urges. His hand on the small of Prompto’s back is a welcome weight, no matter how much Prompto would complain otherwise. “I know you can do it.”

“Wasn’t losing one crutch enough?” Prompto pants.

“Sure,” Cor says. “It was a great accomplishment. And you can always use the crutch if you need it. But it’ll always be just that: a crutch.”

Prompto rolls his eyes. “I hate when you have metaphors and lessons,” he tells Cor with no real venom.

“It’s even better when the metaphor is the lesson,” Cor replies.

“Even worse,” Prompto groans.

“Okay, then how about another incentive?”

Prompto tosses his hair out of his face again and squints at Cor. “Oh?”

“You’re five paces away from another question.”

“You’ve been counting?”

“I keep my word, Prompto.”

That’s true. Cor has been giving him rewards like this so far. They’d agreed that this kind of information was best doled out in easily digestible doses that Prompto could mull over. He doesn’t have the attention span for a long, serious conversation anyway. The news would just aggravate his ceaseless fidgeting.

“Fine,” Prompto says, and he braces himself for a moment.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Whenever I’m ready,” Prompto repeats. Ready for walking or ready for the news? He isn’t quite sure. Whatever the reason, he takes one step, then another, then another, skimming his hands along the rails, trying to walk without relying on them for balance. And then another, lifting his hands from the bars completely to gauge his balance on a leg he can only kind of feel.

The last step is more of a stumble, really, but he catches himself, so he’s pretty sure that counts.

“That’s fifteen,” Cor tells him. “Good job.”

Prompto nods and catches his breath a little bit. It’s a little embarrassing that he can hardly walk without getting winded. Cor insists that it’s no fault of his, and that he’d been in perfect condition before the leg loss and the departure of the Starscourge, but Prompto can’t help but feel some sort of responsibility. 

“Your question?”

Prompto rolls the words around in his mouth to try them out, and he decides that this is the question he wants to ask. “How long was the mission?”

It’s a more direct question, and one that Prompto’s surprised he hadn’t thought to ask before. Cor’s eyes flicker with interest. “I had you for weeks, at least. I had to get out of Niflheim territory before I could get picked up. Even then, it was a gamble. With the Wall pulled back to Insomnia, nowhere was safe.”

“We were in a war zone.”

“That’s right.”

“What was it like?”

“You were a good child.” There’s that wistful edge of Cor’s voice, appearing in a little ghost of some past happiness in the way it always does when he answers Prompto’s questions. “Always seemed to get into trouble. But you had a knack for staying quiet when the troopers came calling.

“There were troopers?”

“Many. And this was before the true growth of the magitek infantry, so they were human soldiers. And humans know how to track, and how to think for themselves. They weren’t about to let one of their precious experiments get away.”

Prompto knows, objectively, that Cor’s not calling him an experiment. But still the word echoes in his head, reminding him of the all-consuming cold of the Niflheim wastelands. “You fought them?”

“When I had to. In enemy territory, you pick your battles.” Cor gestures a little bit, waiting until Prompto takes another halting step before continuing. “But I also had to keep you safe.”

It’s a fascinating image to entertain in his mind. Cor, katana in hand, stalking along darkened train platforms and through Imperial territory, carrying a baby. Carrying Prompto.

“Cor,” he says quietly.

“Yes, Prompto?”

“You kept me safe all along. You brought me back to Lucis.”

Cor nods, all precision and order and military control. Are there even emotions under there? “I did.”

“So why didn’t you keep me?” Prompto’s almost ashamed of the quiver in his voice. He’s thirty; he’s not a child. He’s not the child Cor gave away.

“Prompto…” Cor stops and heaves a breath. “It wouldn’t be right for a Lucian commander to adopt a child of Niflheim.”

“But it was okay for Lucian civilians. Without knowing they’re hiding a weapon in their house.” At the end of the day, it’s what he was bred for. Prompto doesn’t think it would have mattered anyway. They still would have left him home alone.

Cor winces. “Prompto, you have to understand that my home was no place for a child. I was always at the Citadel; I was always fighting. You wouldn’t have had the childhood you deserved.”

Prompto holds on tightly to the handrails and stares down at his mismatched legs. He’s far scrawnier now than he had been when he was a kid. Would Cor have even recognized him? Would Cor have been disappointed? Would he have even cared?

In a burst of speed, he takes several steps, relying on the force of sheer momentum and will to bring him careening towards the end of the rails. He scarcely touches the rails, half-stumbling forward on his flesh-and-metal limbs, and he makes it. He knows it’s far enough, especially since he’d practically run to do it. He’s been counting the paces too.

“That’s another fifteen,” Cor says, voice cryptically quiet.

Prompto bares his teeth in a smile, triumphant and exhausted. “Another question.”

Cor nods, silent.

He’s been thinking about this one. In another world, in another Insomnia, things might have been different. “Who did you want me to be?”

He won’t say it out loud, but he hopes that Cor might say something like  _ son. _

“In a perfect world,” Cor sighs, “you might have been raised in the Citadel with me. I still don’t know why Regis allowed an experiment from Niflheim to be let into the general populace without monitoring. Or at least, any monitoring I knew of.” He furrows his brow. “You would’ve grown up with the prince.”

“Kind of did.” Only after years of waiting and watching and willing himself to be better. Only after he’d decided to remake himself down to the bone, keeping only his photographs and his idle hope and a letter from a princess he never got to meet. 

Cor inclines his head. “That’s true. You would have been a loyal servant to the Crown of Lucis, in all probability. Less free than you were, but more comfortable, I should say.”

“I’m already loyal.”

“Loyalty takes many forms, Prompto. You need to decide what kind of loyal you are. Or what kind you want to be.” Cor’s bright gaze turns to the intensity of sunlight on gunmetal, of the glare from an MT’s armor in the shifting snows of Niflheim. “What do you want to be?”

_ What do you want? _

It’s a different question than what Prompto’s been asking himself. There’s never been time to consider what _he_ wants. There’s been stuff to do, and Noct had been hurting. Prompto’s been focusing so long on who he knows he is that he hasn’t given thought to the concept of the person he wants to be. Slowly, haltingly, he says, “The kind that’s loyal to his friends. To his home.” Those things might be the same thing now. He’s not sure when that’d happened.

“Titus Drautos was loyal to his home, you know.” There’s something bitter in Cor’s voice, like the name is poison in his mouth. The hairs on the back of Prompto’s neck stand up, commanded by unseen static.

“The captain?” he asks, perking up a little. He remembers Captain Drautos and his warm smiles and the imposing air he’d carried. Like a soldier should be, a paragon of service to the crown. The last time he’d seen him had been on the stairs of the Citadel, walking alongside the king like a shadow.

A dark scowl passes across Cor’s face, carrying the threat of a storm. “The captain. I was in Insomnia, you know. After.”

“How?”

“I waited. I was on city guard.” He snorts without a hint of humor. “Lot of good that did.”

“Cor-“

“It’s in the past,” Cor interrupts smoothly. “I’ve made my peace, of a sort.” He shakes his head slowly. “But I won’t forget it. Not the sights I saw. My city, burning.” There’s a raw sort of tremble in his voice, visceral and pained as if the scars of the loss never healed. 

Prompto’s seen enough of the news coverage to understand. He’s seen the ruins of Insomnia from a distant cliff, smoldering and swarming with airships. He’s been here after ten years of ruin. He’s seen the might of the Old Wall. To have been there when the damage was fresh... “Cor...”

Cor holds up a hand to stop him. “You asked me the question. I’m asking you to listen.”

“Loyalty does curious things to people. I protected the people of Insomnia, no matter how much I wanted to stay with King Regis. You, Gladio, and Ignis never gave up hope for your king, sacrificing body and soul for him. And Drautos was loyal to the home he’d left behind, outside the Wall.”

“That’s Lucis.”

“Lucis. Not Insomnia. Not the king.” Again, there’s that shuddering static in the air, supercharged with something beyond emotion, beyond fury, and beyond the cold chill of grief. Cor shakes his head slowly. “I saw the ruins of Insomnia, Prompto. I saw the bodies of the Glaives who died to protect the king. To protect hearth and home. All burning.” His voice goes soft. Dangerous. “All ashes.”

“And then?” Prompto asks, trying to alleviate the pressure of mounting dread in his chest.

Cor meets his eyes with an unyielding gaze. “And the captain was there, dead, in the charred armor of General Glauca.”

Prompto sucks in a breath, tightening his grip on the bars. “Betrayal,” he whispers. “All along?”

“All along.” Cor’s jaw sets. “So you see, Prompto, that your allegiance is a choice. Not who you are by birth.” Cor reaches out slowly, and his hand curls around Prompto’s shoulder, holding him up with an unwavering strength. “You are not what you were made to be. You are who you choose to become. And that’s what I wanted you to be.”

“I would never betray Noct,” Prompto swears. “Never.”

Cor’s pale eyes shine with something that Prompto can’t quite read. It looks familiar, though. It looks like grief. Does he think of Regis when Prompto talks about Noct? Does he regret obeying orders? “I know, Prompto,” he says. “That’s what makes me proud.”

_ Proud. _

Prompto doesn’t bother taking another step. He just asks, “When did you realize that it was me?”

“The last name did the trick well enough.” Cor nods down at Prompto’s arm. “And all the bracelets certainly let me know that there was something hidden there.” His gaze warms just a little, and there’s a hint of a crinkle at the corner of his eyes. “But you just seemed familiar.”

“Were you happy to see me?”

“It was almost funny, you know,” Cor tells him. “You ended up with the prince after all. Just in a more roundabout way.”

Prompto grins. “Never took you to be the type to believe in fate.”

“When you’ve lived as long as I have and seen what I’ve seen, Prompto, sometimes you can’t help but hold on to the idea of destiny.” But there’s still something warm in his gaze. “But I like to think that sometimes the gods give us gifts in their own misguided ways.”

“Misguided,” Prompto snorts. “The gods?”

“We’re all flawed in our own ways, Prompto,” Cor reminds him, and then he frowns, brow creasing with muted concern. “You’ve been standing too long. Come on. Sit.”

Prompto hobbles out from the rails, limping to avoid putting weight on the unnatural numbness of his prosthetic. Cor is with him in an instant, providing gentle support at his side and guiding him over to a set of chairs. He lowers Prompto down into one carefully, eyeing him critically.

“You okay? You did a lot.”

“I’m fine,” Prompto insists. “Just tired.”

“Hm.” Cor doesn’t seem too convinced, but he lets that go. “Your core strength needs some work. That’s a big part of what helps you move the other leg.”

Prompto grins - it’s just too easy. “My  _ Cor _ strength?”

Cor sighs. “Yes.”

Prompto sits back in the chair and breathes out a contented, tired sigh. He looks over at Cor and raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“We need to get you a headband.”

“That bad, huh?” Prompto asks, swiping a hand up and over his head, pushing his uncooperative hair out of the way. He grimaces a bit; he’s sweaty. He tries to surreptitiously wipe off his hand on his equally sweaty shirt, but Cor’s eyes track the movement and his eyebrow quirks into an unambiguously judgmental expression. Prompto shrugs.

Cor rolls his eyes. “Or just a haircut.”

“A haircut?” To be honest, he hasn’t thought too much about his hair recently. None of them have. Cor, of course, has kept his hair in perfect order, trimming it as needed so that he can continue upholding his image as the Marshal of the Crownsguard. Prompto studies him carefully. “Do you think I should cut it like yours?”

For a heartbeat, Cor almost looks like he’s been taken off guard. He blinks as if to bring Prompto’s words into clarity. “If that’s what you want,” he says.

Prompto tries his best to hide his smile. “It’s not. I like my hair the way it is.”

“So why’d you ask?”

“Just a hunch.”

Cor narrows his eyes. “You’re unsubtle, Prompto. Aren’t Council members supposed to learn the intricacies of democracy?”

Prompto snorts, “Have you?”

“I learned enough.”

“For a soldier, you’re not a great liar, Cor.”

“That makes two of us,” Cor retorts. “You have a terrible poker face.”

“We’ve never played poker.”

“Trust me. There are some things I just know.” Cor says it with an air of finality, and he tugs his phone out from the breast pocket of his suit jacket, checking notifications he’s missed while he’s been with Prompto. “Did you know that the delegation from Accordo is coming to make that trade deal tomorrow?" 

“No, actually.” He pauses. “So there are some things you just don’t know.”

Another sigh.

“Thought so.” Prompto stands from the chair, levering himself up on his crutch and his good leg. There’s a shift of fabric behind him that suggests that Cor might have moved to help him on instinct, but that he held himself back. Prompto appreciates that. He shuffles over to the wall and squats down, rocking a bit on his toes, but positions like this are easier than standing, and the prosthetic is sturdy under him. He roots around in the backpack he’s taken to wearing on his casual days. “I’m heading out,” he tells Cor, quickly swapping his sweaty shirt for a new one, tugging a jacket and hat on as well. The black hat is a personal favorite, salvaged from his time in Niflheim. 

“Anywhere in particular?” Cor asks, hardly looking up from his phone. 

“Just outside for now. Taking some pictures. Just want to cool down before the day ends.”

“Bringing the crutch, I hope?” Cor glances up at him and studies his casual wear. “If you’re planning on traveling pretty far.”

“I’ve got it, Cor,” Prompto promises.

Cor’s lips set into a thin line, but he seems pleased with Prompto’s conviction. “I’ll be in the training rooms. We’ve got some hunters who want to move into official Crownsguard status and I need to put them through the motions.”

“Okay.” Prompto stands and slings the bag over one shoulder. “I’ll catch up with you later. See ya, Cor!”

Cor watches him go. “Be safe, Prompto,” he calls.

Prompto grins and ducks out of the training room, heading out towards the winter sun.

Walking through the halls, using his crutch for support, he doesn’t feel as scrutinized as he had back when he’d had his wheelchair. At least now people do more than stare or avoid eye contact altogether. Now he’s Prompto Argentum, Glaive and friend and something more, walking the halls of a castle he used to only admire from a distance.

Weird how things can change.

He walks down the stairs this time, refusing to use the ramp once he’s outside. He was wheeled into the Citadel; he’s going to walk out. It’s slow going, and he moves cautiously on frost-touched steps, testing every step with his crutch before he slings his prosthetic leg over the lip of the stair. But he makes it, albeit with a little heavy breathing, and then he’s standing in the plaza outside the Citadel.

If he looks to the right, he can pinpoint the spot where he’d been poisoned. There’s a nasty little part of his mind that urges him to hobble over there and look at it or photograph it or cry. There’s nobody here to convince him not to, after all. He can do what he wants.

_ What do you want? _

It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?

He keeps walking, leaving the plaza and the memory of searing poison behind him. Those are old pains. He’s not here to dwell on those.

Passing through the gates feels like taking a breath of fresh air.

Out here, outside the gates of the Citadel, it actually feels like Prompto’s part of the world. It’s like Insomnia seems so much larger when he’s standing in the streets. He leans his crutch up against the nearest wall. He sneaks his camera out of his backpack and frames the wide street in the viewfinder. The sunlight and the hints of frost have already turned the stone and metal of Insomnia to a gentle bluish gray, so he decides that he doesn’t need a filter. Not this time.

It seems like this whole day is aiming and shooting. He presses the shutter button, looks down at the picture, and grins. It’s a good one this time; he’ll have to show Noct.

He flips through some of the others, grinning at them.

There’s one of Aranea and Cindy just before they left Insomnia, arm and arm in front of Aranea’s red airship. They’re both laughing, and for once something like joy is crinkling the corners of Aranea’s eyes.

Here’s one of Gladio and Iris, standing in near-silhouette on the stairs of the Citadel. The setting sun picks out the amber in their eyes, turning it nearly golden in the ethereal light. Their faces are lined with the ghosts of old worries, but with night falling over Insomnia, there’s a kind of peace settling in their gazes.

There’s one of Ignis coming back from patrol, caught in candid by Prompto’s furtive photography. He’s running a hand through his hair, pushing it back in bloodstained strands from his face to expose the elegant lines of his face and the dark sleekness of his visor. But he looks at peace, and his mouth is poised to say some now-forgotten words to where Noct waits just out of frame.

And here, Noctis watches Prompto from over his shoulder, eyes wide in surprise and amusement at being photographed. The lighting is soft and pale against his skin, making the burnt gray and shifting scarlet of his right side look muted and elegant. 

This one’s his favorite: a first selfie after so long. Prompto’s a little protective over it, and he smiles despite himself when he sees it, curling the camera close to keep the photo from any prying eyes. This one’s his. It’s the four of them at dinner, forks forgotten in their hands to smile up at Prompto’s impromptu photo. Even Noct is smiling, mismatched eyes shining with an almost palpable power. Prompto resolves to print this one out and keep it somewhere precious.

And there are so many more. People in a marketplace. A child running after her dog. A father in Crownsguard black ruffling his son’s hair. The sunset from the overlook Prompto and Ignis had visited months ago, outlining the skyline in gold.

Memories of the new Insomnia. Will people in the future treasure these photos as much as Prompto does? Will historians find these moments to be as precious as the shots of an ascending king or a newborn sun?

Prompto does. That’ll have to be enough.

“Mr. Argentum?”

Prompto looks up from his camera. That’s a new one. His last name is used so infrequently nowadays; it’s not like there are enough people left in the world to necessitate a family name to set them apart. He squints at a set of figures hurrying towards him: women, all of them. They’ve all got that lean build that most of the survivors of the Night have developed, born of sacrifice and a will to survive. 

There’s three of them this time around, and Prompto tries to place their faces when they draw closer. There’s one wearing a heavy blue coat, watching him from over the edge of her tightly wrapped scarf with curious dark eyes. The other one is darker-skinned, and she’s got a braid in her hair that picks her out as a Galahd native. She’s in black, wearing pieces of an ensemble that looks vaguely familiar to Prompto. It reminds him of palaces and fast cars, back in the Insomnia that had still been shining and new.

The girl with them must be only around twelve or thirteen, but she’s got a quiet grace that reminds Prompto of Talcott or Iris. A child of the darkness; of the Night. The way she looks at Prompto makes him think that he must know her. But he’s never hunted with kids this young, so the faint familiarity of her face eludes him.

But together, the three of them strike at a memory a few months old, one tinged with new grief and old pain. Hammerhead. Prompto in his wheelchair. Noctis, awake at last.

“I don’t know if you remember,” the woman in black says, a little breathlessly, “but we met in Hammerhead. Briefly.”

“The arms dealer,” Prompto blurts, because her voice has unlocked the rest of the memory from his mind.

There had been pity in her eyes when she’d looked at him and his ruined body. Now he stands in the winter sunlight, knowing that it makes his scarlet veins stand out in stark contrast against his pale face, and he’s unafraid. And her eyes are soft and curious, but there’s no pity there. Only friendliness.

It’s nice to see.

“That’s right,” she confirms. She looks different than she had all those months again. There’s a stronger set to her jaw, and she looks less desperately thin, and there’s a light in her eyes that speaks of triumph. Seeing it makes Prompto a little proud. He helped with that, kind of, back when he’d paid for her sword.

“Prompto Argentum,” she muses. “They called you jumpy. When I was in the Crown City, beforehand, and you were friends with the prince, they talked about you in the barracks. Called you a nervous little thing. They call you different things now.”

He knows the names. Quicksilver, Lionheart, Glaive, Nif, cripple. They’re all names. They’re all words. Prompto has dealt too long with names. He has dealt too long with people trying to make him something he has never wanted to be. He has known the names since childhood when they called him fat; since he can remember when he started to hide the strange ink on his wrist.

Let them call him what they want.

He grins. “I like to think I’m still jumpy.”

“Do you?”

“I think I’ve got some fight left in me.” When she laughs, he shifts his weight, leaning on the left one. He cocks his head to the side. “What’s your name? I never got it.”

She laughs again - a light, airy sound. “Of course. Sorry. Wasn’t much time for that. I’m Statera.” She gestures backwards to the woman and girl accompanying her. “And these are Parda and Uncia.”

Prompto gives a little wave. “Hi.” How are Council members supposed to greet people? He certainly doesn’t feel any different with the title. He just feels like one of them. He decides to hold on to that instinct. “So you found me.”

Statera nods. “In Insomnia. We promised.”

Prompto smiles. “And here we are. In Insomnia.” 

Like a circle. Like fate. But Prompto’s better now. Stable. When he looks at her, and when he looks around Insomnia, he can’t help but think of the person he’d been, and what he’d lost with the dawn. But she also make him think of why he’s back in Insomnia. He’s here for Noct. And like her, he’s here for Lucis. For hearth and home. And now he stands here, eye to eye with a woman he’d once fled from in a wheelchair.  
Funny how things like that happen.

“Still got that sword?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t be a Glaive without it.” Statera’s hand flexes at her side, as if to grab the hilt of a blade she doesn’t have. “It’s a good sword,” she tells him, and somewhere in there her words are saying  _ thank you. _

“Better keep using it,” Prompto tells her, and he grins. “There’s not many of us left.”

“Us?” she questions, brow furrowed. “Plenty of us can fight.”

“But,” Prompto says, “not many of us can fight like Glaives. Or could. You remember the magic.”

Her brow smoothes out into a faraway expression, and her dark eyes go bright with some unreadable emotion. “I remember the magic,” she says. “In all the ten years of darkness, I’ve never forgotten the magic.”

“It’s hard to forget.” Like Noct. Like Insomnia. Like everything Prompto has ever or will ever hold dear.

“Yes.” She studies him for a moment. “You disappeared for a while after the dawn. None of us heard much from you after you got to Insomnia. Thought you succumbed.”

“Succumbed?”

She gestures to his red veins. “To the wasting. After the Scourge.”

Prompto looks down at his own wrist, exposed to the cold and shining with lines of muted crimson. He could probably ask Noct to try and heal him, to pour the feral magic of the gods into his veins and fill the hollow part of him where the Scourge used to live. Maybe then he’d be stronger. “Nah,” he says, half to himself and half to Statera. “The veins mean I survived.”

Something like surprise flickers across her face, resolving itself into amusement. “I like you, Prompto Argentum,” she tells him. “I hope you aren’t planning on leaving Insomnia.”

“No,” he says. “I’m here to stay.”

He means it, too.

“We’re headed out to the commercial district,” Parda says, speaking up from behind the warm confines of her scarf. “We’re going to help with the construction there. There’ll be a central marketplace for all seasons.”

Prompto smiles. “That’s nice.”

Parda nods, a little jerkily. Her eyes dart over to meet Statera’s. Prompto’s heart sinks. He’s done something wrong.

Statera nods to Parda and fixes her amused gaze on Prompto, placing a hand on her hip. “What we’re asking,” she says, voice warm and kind and bold, “is if you’d like to join us.”

_ Oh. _

So this is what it’s like.

“Join you?” he stammers.

“If you’d like,” Statera repeats. “You know, we’ve heard news from the Citadel. Stuff about certain Council members wanting to lend a hand. I know that we’ve got some logistics to consider. I hear you’re good at that.”

So they know him out here in the city. Prompto Argentum, Council member. It’s still the most hilarious thing he’s ever heard. “Promise there’ll be numbers?” he asks, trying desperately to keep his grin under control.

“Glaive’s honor.”

He laughs at that, and at the mock-solemn way she says it. “Mind if I bring this?” Prompto asks, and he nods over to his crutch leaning against the wall.

Her eyes fall on it and hold there for a moment, but there’s no flicker of pity in her gaze this time. She meets his eyes once more and smiles. “Fine by me.”

“Alright.” Prompto nods, then again, because he can’t help the dopey smile on his face. “Okay.” He grabs his crutch and settles it under his arm, letting his body come back into balance as he takes the first few steps towards the three women.

When he falls into step beside them, he laughs, nudging Uncia to make her giggle back at him. He barely knows these people, but somehow they seem familiar.

He stumbles occasionally on his uneven feet, but each time there’s a shoulder to prop him up or a crutch to set him back on track. It’s not perfect by any means. But Prompto doesn’t think he wants perfect.

There’s enough misery in the world still. The Scourge still left him weakened, and there’s still a barcode on his wrist. But there’s hope in there somewhere. He’s got Cor, and he’s got Noct, and Gladio and Ignis as well. He’s got Aranea and Cindy too. And maybe he’s got Statera, and all the people in the city he’s always loved.

Belonging.

It’s a nice word to think about. For the first time, it makes him smile.

He walks tall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Prompto's journey! I've loved writing this guy and I wanted to give him a hopeful sendoff, but some plot wormed its way in along the way. There's still a lot for him to deal with, but I think he's in a far better place than where he started.
> 
> Next up: Gladio's finale. :)


	23. gladiolus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Destiny.

Everything feels safer when it’s dark.

He and Iris sit quietly in his Citadel bedroom, each involved in their own activities. Iris is curled up in the window seat quietly mending an old tear in one of her shirts with black fabric from a shirt Gladio’s long since outgrown. Gladio’s sitting up against his headboard, catching up on some old reading - a rare pleasure nowadays. There’s only soft golden lamplight keeping them from being plunged into darkness, but neither of them complain about it. It seems like both of them prefer the cover of night. Maybe it’s the fact that Iris grew up during the ten year darkness and Gladio found solace in the single-minded push for survival that came in the Night. Maybe they still want that, at least a little bit.

It’s nice, at least. In the night, Gladio gets to think. There hadn’t been much time for thinking back when he was still a kid in Insomnia, especially not for the future Shield of the King. After seeing Gladio’s shortcomings in the Council meetings, Clarus had decided that his heir’s energies were best devoted to being the prince’s shadow and constant companion. And that’s when the training had begun in earnest, and Gladio had become a Shield at last, signing the contract with the scar across his left eye.

Now, Gladio’s in charge, and he’d much rather curl up with a book and his sister than train until his muscles scream at him. No more of the brutal act of pushing himself to his limits. He’ll still train, and he’ll still be the Shield he needs to be, but on his terms. His rules. What he wants.

Iris shifts over in his peripheral vision; when he glances up, she’s set her mending down and is instead picking at the leather on her vest, picking at the open cavity where a knife would usually fit. She stares out of the window to the scattered lights of Insomnia far below.

“Something on your mind?” he asks quietly, turning a page.

“You’re a bit of a shut-in now,” Iris points out. “You don’t leave the Citadel too often.”

“Neither did Dad, and he didn’t even live in the Citadel. I do, though. So...Citadel.”

Iris hums a bit at that. “Suppose that’s true. Our place is probably not fit for living anymore anyway.” She laughs, but there’s something tense in her voice that makes it quiet.

“Hey,” Gladio says, closing his book, “that reminds me. I have something for you.” He stands from the bed and heads for his wardrobe. The shifting of fabric and soft footsteps on the carpet tell Gladio that Iris is coming to join him.

As he approaches the wardrobe, he passes the ornate rack where he keeps his weapons. His father’s shield sits next to Gladio’s greatsword, both gleaming in the low lamplight. They’re a mismatches set: the shield is the elegant tool of a veteran Council member to a king of protocol and grace, and it’s a masterpiece of black steel and gold with the soaring eagle motif. By comparison, Gladio’s greatsword is all silver and scuffs, worn by time and effort but still kept sharp by endless care. But somehow the dichotomy is fitting. Public shield and private blade, an immovable force with a keen edge underneath. Gladio likes to think that it suits him, and that maybe his father might have understood too. He runs a finger along the hard wood of the rack before turning to the wardrobe.

He opens it carefully and bends to retrieve his bag of little treasures from the bottom. He rummages around in it carefully, but eventually he finds what he’s looking for and pulls it from the darkened depths, presenting it to Iris. “Here.”

She blinks down at it. “This is from-”

“The Fall. Your room.” The blade is still shining a wicked silver, and there’s the ghost of old crimson on the edge.

“You went home?” When she looks up at him - never too far up now; she’s almost his height now - her eyes are wider than he’s seen them in years, shimmering with decade-old sadness.

“I went home,” he confirms.

“This knife. Do you know-”

“I saw the carnage. What was it?”

“An MT. They must have had orders to get to people who were politically-” She swallows. “Valuable. Prizes for the conquest.”

The words alone make Gladio almost growl. Iris, a prize. She could have been captured. She could have been killed.

“I was home alone. Nobody was answering their phone and you were gone, of course. But Jared came into the house, and Talcott too, just after the Citadel explosion. They told me to start packing as soon as the screams started.” She blinks. “You know,” she says, voice far away, “I’ve wondered whether Dad told Jared to expect something. If he knew and didn’t tell us.”

Gladio thinks back to picking his father’s corpse from the wall, and of the way he’d looked so sad and alone in death. Of his father’s face before Gladio had left Insomnia, and the look in his eyes like he was already grieving. “He knew,” he rasps. “He knew, and he let me leave. He knew, and he let you stay here.”

“But he made sure I got out.”

“He should have kept you safer.”  _ Would I have, if I’d been there?  _ “Safer from what happened. Safe enough that you wouldn’t need to kill.”

Iris drops her gaze to the knife. “I would’ve needed to kill something eventually.”

“You were fifteen, Iris. That’s too young.” Gladio didn’t even kill something until he left with Noctis. Iris was only a child. She was only a child, and Gladio hadn’t been there. He places his hands over hers, making her fingers close around the ornate hilt of the knife. “What happened?” he asks quietly.

“The Nifs broke the windows and one came to my room, but I fought it off.” She shivers. “I’ll never forget the eyes. Red. Dead.”

“Magitek,” Gladio answers quietly, trying to ignore that lump in his throat that says  _ something in that core used to be Prompto.  _ “The blood-”

“Mine,” Iris answers, and there’s the growl in Gladio’s throat again, rising up to protect a sister he’d had ten years ago. “It was a rough fight.”

“You should have this,” he insists. “What’s that thing you said to Noctis? About proof?”

Iris smiles, sad and soft in the meager lamplight. “Eavesdropping?”

Gladio taps at the side of his head. “Shield. Always listening.”

She chuckles quietly before sobering again. “You found this back home,” she murmurs, turning the blade over in her hands. 

“I did.” He can still see it: her room in disarray. The blood on the moogle doll.

She tucks the blade into the holster on her vest. “I want to go.”

“Go?” Gladio asks, furrowing his brow. “Home?”

“I do.” She brushes past him and grabs her jacket from where she’d hung it by the door. “I want to see what’s left.”

Gladio frowns, following her and toeing his boots on even as he says, “Iris, it’s late.”

“We’re adults. We’re Council members. We can do what we want.” Iris is pulling on her boots too, forcing Gladio into motion. For a second, it sounds like she’s fifteen and stubborn again, defiant in the face of some greater challenge. 

But the challenge is just Gladio, and he’s never been able to say no to her.

“Fine,” he agrees, breathing out a sigh. He tucks his hair out of his face, tightening the elastic that holds it back, and huffs out another sigh of frustration when a few strands fall back to hang along beside his eyes. He still hasn’t gotten a haircut; he needs to get one before Aranea comes back, or he’ll never hear the end of it.

She grins, triumphant. “I knew you’d say yes,” she boasts, and she bounds out the door.

Gladio tugs on his jacket and follows her into the Citadel hallways. He can’t help but smile. He’s missed Iris’s boundless energy.

On their way towards the elevators, Gladio hears the quiet click of a door in the hallways behind him, but he pays it no mind.

They’re quiet on the walk out of the Citadel. Gladio doesn’t ask Iris what she’s thinking about, but he has his ideas. He’s seen enough of the news footage to have an idea, and he’s heard the muted horror in Talcott’s voice when he recalls their flight from the Crown City.

The walk isn’t far, and they’re hastened by the snap of the chill in the air, promising some future snow. But for tonight, the skies are clear, and the moon and stars shine down, mingling their cold light with the golden glow of the streetlights. Gladio breathes it in, savoring the quiet coldness of the night.

They’ve always felt safer at night. Bolder. Maybe that’s why they’re here now.

They stop in the middle of the street when they reach the house, and they stare.

“It looks smaller,” Iris says softly. Her feet are set wide, bracing her against a storm Gladio can’t see. He can only imagine what she’s thinking about. Insomnia burning, maybe. Magitek troopers in the street. The might of the old wall. Their father somewhere in the Citadel, dying for a king that sacrificed him for the sake of one prince. 

“You were smaller,” he reminds her. Somehow, without thinking, he keeps his voice low. It’s as if they both know that they’re standing on sacred territory.

“I was smaller,” she agrees. Then she takes in a deep breath and exhales it again, sending her breath spiraling through the air in a fiercely white cloud. “I’m not small anymore.” And she balls her hands into fists and stalks towards the door.

Gladio follows slowly, looking back behind himself for a moment to check the empty street behind him.

Something tingles in the back of his awareness, like he’s being watched. But nothing’s there, and the street is quiet. Old ghosts, probably, and his own reservations.

He goes inside, and he closes the door behind himself.

Instead of going right upstairs this time, he wanders around the bottom floor, sometimes with Iris, and sometimes on his own. He goes off on his own when she disappears into the room where she’d done her homework, and he goes to find the one place he’d always been wary about entering under cover of night. 

The living room.

There’s his father’s armchair, and the soft couch, and the other chair as well. The fabric is wearing thin, and there have clearly been animals in here, but Gladio knows it for what it is. If not for the ten years of wear, Gladio could be convinced that he’s still twenty three and reckless.

It reminds him of late nights past his bedtime. If he squints, maybe he can see the shades of his father in his favorite armchair, or the king in the other one, or Cor on the couch. This was their place, their haven, and Gladio had only rarely gotten to catch a glimpse of the life they shared. They’d been five, once, until Weskham had stayed in Accordo and Cid had left for Hammerhead. This sitting room had been their last campfire, a spot of solace for the remnants of their team in the formal oppressiveness of Insomnia. It’s a small wonder that Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto hadn’t irreparably fractured like that. They’d always had Hammerhead, and the idle hope that Noctis would get Umbra’s message one day and return to them.

Thumb wars and his father’s smile. He won’t forget them.

Those memories are best saved for quieter moments.

Gladio almost wants to take a souvenir from the room, just to remind himself of the quiet comfort he’d only sometimes been allowed to see. But he thinks that Cor might already have done that. After all, this is his place more than it’s Gladio’s.

Gladio doesn’t mind. He has his own campfires, and he still has Prompto and Ignis and Noct. Let Cor get what he can from the bones of the Insomnia he’d had.

He turns away from the living room and towards warmer spots, searching for his sister.

He finds Iris upstairs, slowly approaching a familiar door.

“Are you going to go inside?” he asks quietly.

She must have heard him come upstairs - of course she did; she’s a hunter - because she doesn’t flinch at his sudden words in the haunting silence of their house. “My bedroom.” She pauses in the doorway. “The last time I was here-”

“The fight,” Gladio says. “I know.” He doesn’t like thinking about Iris as she had been:  young and afraid, all finely honed training with no experience to prepare her for true combat. He doesn’t like thinking about her bleeding as she ran from the crumbling ruins of the only home she’d ever known.

She reaches for the doorknob and then stops, fingers just a breath away from the metal. “I can’t,” she says.

“You can’t?”

Iris shakes her head. “There are some things I’d rather not relive.”

Gladio nods. “I understand.”

He does. There’s a reason he tries to stay out of the throne room. 

“Let’s keep going,” she says, leaving her childhood bedroom behind.

Gladio follows her further into the creaking half-light of the hallway, finally lit by the return of much of the power to the city. They pass by his bedroom as well. Maybe one day, he’ll go back in there, but that’s not why they’re here. This is about closure. 

This is about Dad.

They stop at the door at the end of the hallway. Somehow, it’s reassuring that Iris has the same qualms as him when it comes to this particular door.

“Going to open it?” he asks.

“I could never,” she says. “I can’t even remember the last time I went into his room. I must have been...seven? Eight?”

“Bad dreams?” Gladio asks, glancing over at her.

Iris’s lips twist into a wistful little smile. “He hugged me.”

“They were good hugs,” he agrees. Clarus had been a Council member and a Shield and a soldier, but he’d also been their father. Even after at least twenty years, Gladio remembers the hugs. “For comfort.”

“It’s his room,” Iris says. “I can’t just go in uninvited.” There’s that soldier’s reluctance, that well-trained obedience.

“I’m the head of the family now,” Gladio tells her, “and I think that comfort comes in more forms than just his presence.”

There’s catharsis in this room for both of them.

He opens the door.

Everything is just as he left it. Cor might have been here too, but there’s no evidence of his quiet prying, and Clarus’s room is just as pristine as it used to be. It’s chilly in here, not unlike the tomb where their father is interred, but that’s more the coolness of night and winter than anything else.

“Just like I remembered,” Iris says in a tone touched by wonder.

“Here, look.” Gladio tugs her over to the wardrobe and throws it open.

Hangers of thick black cloth wait inside, filling the space with something more comforting than darkness. There are a few gaps from Gladio’s previous visit, when he’d hoarded away a set of robes for himself. But other than that, the old Crownsguard uniforms and formalwear remain, all black and gold and red.

“All of his stuff,” Iris breathes.

“Take some,” he urges. “Wear it.” 

“Wear it?” she asks incredulously. “Dad’s stuff?”

“Our stuff. Family heirlooms. Here, look-” Gladio reaches into the wardrobe, privately relishing the faint scent of his father’s cologne on the clothes when he pulls out a set of robes he hadn’t taken with him on his first visit. “A cloak.”

Iris takes it from his hands with a care unlike her. She rubs at the fabric with curious thumbs; Gladio sees her inhale as well, taking in the once-familiar scent of home and Clarus. “A cloak,” she repeats quietly. “Good condition.”

“Very utilitarian,” Gladio adds, “so it’s better for travel. And fighting, of course. But it’s fitting for your station.”

“My station,” she snorts, but she doesn’t let go of the cloak. She lifts it a bit higher, inspecting it with a critical eye. “It’s certainly got some height to it. I’m tall, but not that tall.”

“We can adjust it,” Gladio promises.

Iris raises her eyebrow. “You’re eager to get me to wear something of his.”

He nudges her with an elbow. “We’ll match. That is, if you’re not embarrassed to match with your big brother.”

“A pair of Amicitias,” Iris muses with a little smile. 

“A pair of Shields,” Gladio adds, and Iris’s smile turns wistful.

“We’re the last ones,” she says, folding the cloak close to her chest. “The last of our kind.”

He’d never thought of it like that before. He’d always been looking back at the years of service that made up his legacy. He’d never looked forward at who would continue that line. Would he subject another Amicitia to the pressures of his duty? Would he become his father?

“There could always be more,” Gladio says. “I could find someone, or you could-”

“Is there even a point?” Iris interrupts. 

Gladio frowns. “What do you mean?”

Iris stares up at him with bold, fiery amber eyes. She says, “There won’t be any more kings or queens. Not after Noct. Why should we continue to uphold old values?”

“The Amicitias and the Caelums have always been hand in hand in the protection of Lucis.”

“The line of Lucis served its purpose,” she says, “but that time is done. The Crystal is gone. Don’t you think that’s a sign?”

“But the people,” he protests. “The Shield of the People. That’s you. Who’ll replace you?”

Iris blinks up at him with eyes far older than her twenty five years. Eyes from the Night, eyes from the Fall; eyes that saw too much. “Anyone who cares about these people as much as I do. It doesn’t take an Amicitia to save a king. It doesn’t take a family to protect a nation.”

“Iris.”

“We can still have children, Gladio. We can still let them put the eagle on their bodies. But I’m tired, Gladio,” she says, voice unbearably earnest. “I’m tired of the endless expectation. I’m tired of destiny.”

“I am too.” He is. Destiny tore him from his books and his laughter and his father and left him with scars and muscles and ashes. He can’t do that to someone else. He won’t let the dawn send them in a circle.

“Then you understand,” Iris says, “that this is the end. That we’re the end.”

“Not the last Amicitias,” he replies.

“Just the last ones to be raised to be something they might not want.” Iris reaches out with one hand, clasping Gladio’s wrist in a tight, warm grip. “But we made our choices, Gladio. I made a choice. I chose who I became when the sun rose. I wanted this.”

_ What do you want? _

“I want this.” It’s the truth, and he knows it. “I’m Noct’s Shield.”

She smiles, and her eyes crinkle. “Good.”

“Good,” Gladio repeats, and he smiles.

Iris tilts her head to the side. “I think I’ll keep this,” she tells him, holding on tightly to the cloak. “It’ll remind me of Insomnia, and of him.”

“It will,” Gladio promises. He feels it whenever he touches his father’s shield. “Let’s take some of this and get out of here.”

“Let’s,” Iris agrees.

The two of them make their way out of the bedroom after a bit, arms full of soft black fabric they want. They won’t wear some of it, like Clarus’s old military fatigues, but they don’t want to leave it in the house to rot either. They pass their old bedrooms and descend back to the first floor with their treasures.

In the kitchen, Gladio carefully folds the robes and keepsakes together, placing them into the bag he’d found in one of the offices. Jared’s office, if he’s not mistaken. He’d been prepared for their flight from Insomnia.

“You’ll have to leave some of this in the Citadel when you travel,” he notes. “Unless you have a place out in Lucis I don’t know about.”

She snorts. “Just the Lestallum apartment, but I hardly use that. I’d rather keep Dad’s stuff in Insomnia where it belongs. I stay out too much for it to be safe.”

“Well, you’ve got to come back for Council meetings sometimes.”

“Gladio,” Iris says, and the note in her voice makes him look up and meet her sad eyes. It sounds like pity.

Gladio bows his head. “I know.” He’d known she’d hear the question in his voice, and the way it said  _ can you come home? _

“I can’t stay here.”

“Iris,” he says, a little ashamed of how plaintive his voice sounds. How desperate. “This is our home. Our family home.”

“Home is a lot of places for me now. Just...I can’t stay here. Not in this city. Not in this house.” She blinks at him with wide, sad amber eyes. “I’m sorry, Gladdy.”

“No, Iris,” Gladio says quietly. He runs his finger along the dusty countertop. “It’s fine. I understand. But...this place is always gonna be here for you, you know?” He means Insomnia. He means himself.

“Are you gonna rebuild it?” Iris hops up on the countertop beside him. She’s taller now, of course, but her feet still dangle when she sits up there. It’s endearing to see even now, when the soft innocence of her youth has given way to the steely determination of adulthood. She’s still Iris. She’ll always be Iris.

Gladio looks around at the dusty, half-destroyed remains of their home. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know.”

_ What do you want? _

Does he want to breathe life back into this place that always meant duty and destiny? Is this house worth it, when even Prompto hasn’t bothered to go back to his old house, and when Ignis has ignored the royal-issue apartment he’d had before the Fall? Is this even his home?

“I need some air.”

Iris looks like she might say something else, but she nods instead, pressing her lips together. “I’ll put some stuff together, and then we can go home.”

Home. To the Citadel.

This place isn’t their home. Not this house, cold and impersonal and full of every lie their father had ever told them.

Gladio nods. “Home.”

And he wanders back through creaking halls to the front door.

Gladio goes outside, breathing in the chilly night air. After the stagnant silence of the Amicitia house, the faint breeze that whistles through the bombed-out husks of the city blocks is a welcome change. Gladio closes his eyes, trying to calm the confusing mess of feelings in his heart.

_ What do you want? _

“I don’t know,” he whispers, because his mind is too loud for him to keep this all inside. “I don’t know.”

He opens his eyes.

There’s somebody standing in the street.

For a half second, alarms go off in Gladio’s head. In another Insomnia, ten years ago, he would have feared that any person crazy enough to stand in the middle of the street would also be crazy enough to attack his home and his family and his king. But that was an Insomnia before the Fall and before the long, dark Night, and Gladio knows better now. The asphalt is cracked and failing in this Insomnia, and any lost soul can wander across the pavement.

Tonight, it’s just Noctis.

The king looks small at night. Of course, he was always smaller than Gladio, but the shadows of the world past midnight swallow him up in his black clothes and raven-dark hair. Gladio doesn’t know if Noctis is waiting for him or if he’s here on his own agenda. All he can see is the faint glint that tells him that Noct has his eyes wide open and is staring at the Amicitia house.

“Noct,” he says, not bothering to raise his voice.

Noct’s head tilts towards him. “Gladio.”

“Noct,” Gladio sighs, stepping down to the street level and drawing closer to Noctis, “it’s cold outside.”

“I know.” Noctis stares up at the sky, eyes wide under the moon and the golden glow of the streetlights. He looks ethereal in this light, touched by gold and silver, casting impossible refractions in his mismatched eyes. 

Gladio’s not sure exactly who he is anymore. He’s Noct - that goes without saying, he’ll always be Noct - but there are bits missing from him and bits added on. There’s more grief and less innocence, and wild magic where there once was the crisp blueness of the Lucii. Somehow it still makes him Noct, like the trades changed him without remaking him. Gladio had feared, once, that the differences would make him...not Noct. Not the Noct he remembered. Selfish thoughts, especially when he had spent a week stealing glimpses of his newly resurrected king, afraid of who he’d meet when he woke. 

Noct’s here now, though. That’s what matters. 

“Why are you out here?”

Noctis blinks. “Same reason as you.”

“Here to pick through the remains of your family home too?” Gladio asks drily. “If so, you’re a little lost.”

Noctis snorts out a breath, sending fog spiraling into the chilly air. “Something like that.” He rubs at his arms for a second and tugs a thick scarf a little tighter around his neck. Gladio recognizes it; he could’ve sworn that was one of Ignis’s favorites. Noctis buries his face in it for a second before he looks back over at Gladio. “No, but really. I heard that you guys were coming out here. Your rooms are close enough to mine, you know. So I came out to find you.”

“I expected you to be asleep at this hour, to be honest.”

Noctis snorts. “I’m thirty, not eighty.”

“Didn’t stop you from sleeping like it was your job when you were twenty.”

“I was growing,” Noctis protests faintly, and when Gladio glances over at him he can see the little smile dancing across his thin lips.

“You were,” Gladio agrees. He studies Noctis a little bit, taking in the sharp angles of his jawline and his too-long dark hair and the darkness that seems to have taken up residence beneath his eyes. “You’ve grown up.”

“You say that to Iris too.”

“Because it’s true.” Gladio sighs. “I watched her grow up. Even then, she went running off as soon as Cor let her. I missed out on ten years with her. And I missed out on ten years with you, too.”

“Iris is your sister, though.”

“Gods, Noct, are you that dense?” Gladio snaps.

Noctis blinks, surprised. “What?”

“If you think for a second that you mean any less to me than Iris, you’re wrong.” He thinks of Cid’s words at Cape Caem, the last time they’d all been together. The last time everything had been normal. The last time Ignis’d had his sight, the last time Noctis had smiled, the last time Gladio had felt like things might get back to normal one day. The memory is half-faded, desaturated like one of Prompto’s photographs sitting out in the sun, but he still clings to it, tugging it from the compartment in his mind where he keeps all of his feelings safe and untouchable.

_ They’re your brothers. _

Noctis’s uneven gaze narrows a bit. “Guess I am.” He’s trying to hide it, of course, but Gladio can hear the note of surprise in his voice, and the way he sounds pleased.

“You look good,” Gladio tells him. “Really.”

Noctis grins, lopsided and a little mischievous. “Gladio, you old flirt.”

Gladio snorts. “Not in your wildest dreams, princess. I mean that you look healthier than you used to.”

“Do I look like my dad?” Again, there’s that attempt at being casual, but Noct is ten years out of practice and Gladio knows him better than that.

Gladio tilts his head to the side. There is a hint of King Regis in there, but the old king had always looked weary and miserable, dragged down by the power of the Ring and the knowledge that one day he would send his son to die. That grief is still there in Noct, but it’s an older grief; a resigned one. “A little,” he admits. “But you just look like yourself, mostly.”

Noctis rubs at his jaw thoughtfully. “Like myself,” he repeats. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“How do you feel?”

“About this?” Noctis looks down at his hands, then back at Gladio. In the half-darkness, his spidering veins of fire almost glow. It’s not enough to be immediately obvious, but there’s something about the way his red eye gleams even when the streetlight isn’t hitting it that makes Gladio shiver. It reminds him of the chills he’d felt down his spine when Titan had risen to life before them or Leviathan had razed a city in her rage. There’s a different magic in Noct that brought him back, and sometimes it’s enough to scare Gladio. Not in his louder moments, when he snaps and yells, but in these quiet moments, when Noct is still and silent and staring at him with a gaze that speaks of magic lost and gained. Fire and ice, but Gladio’s not sure which is which.

“Yeah,” Gladio says, mouth dry. “That.”

“Thought I told you I’d made my peace.”

“Making your peace is something you say when you decide to die.” The words feel ugly spilling from his lips, but they’re the truth he’s always felt. He can’t ever hear Noct say something like that without being transported back to the hillside overlooking Insomnia, where he’d twice resigned himself to the death of a king. Once in firelight and once in the rain - always with Noct. They’re not on that hillside tonight. Gladio refuses to hear those words at night. He doesn’t believe in equating acceptance with happiness.

Noctis almost laughs, low and raspy. “You’re too smart for your own good, Gladio.”

Well. Gladio has always been good at seeing through Noct’s lies.

“Part of the job,” he replies instead, folding his arms and looking up to the sky. Even after over three months, he still can’t get enough of the stars over Insomnia. “So what’s it gonna be?”

Noctis opens his mouth to reply, but instead of words, a soft whine pierces the chilly air between them.

“Was that you?” Gladio asks, heart immediately several beats faster. He knows it wasn’t.

Noctis shakes his head. Slowly, he points to the shadows across the street, where the buildings are bombed out and darkened. “What was that?” he whispers, eyes wide.

Gladio reaches out slowly and wraps his fingers around Noct’s skinny wrist. “Get behind me,” he orders lowly.

“Gladio-”

“I didn’t ask you to argue,” Gladio tells him. His eyes don’t leave the shifting shadows, though. He shifts his stance when Noctis wordlessly slips behind him, trying to get as much of himself as possible between the threat and his king. He clenches his fist out of habit, but no sword shatters into his grasp. He curses quietly under his breath. He can’t believe he was dumb enough to go out like this unarmed when he knows there are creatures that hunt in the dark of night. Whatever they are, he can hear their ugly chorus of snarls from the darkness.

“There aren’t any daemons,” Noctis says. It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than Gladio. “I killed them. I ended it all.”

“Doesn’t mean things don’t still want to kill you at night.” Gladio narrows his eyes and scowls out into the darkness. Something is out there.

More than something. He can hear their claws on the pavement.

They come prowling into the golden light spilling from the street lamps, eyes glowing. They’re sabertusks, or something worse, enhanced and mutated and then deprived by the Starscourge, desperate and hungry. There’s a savage intelligence in their eyes that reminds Gladio of the bloodhorn from ten years ago. Ten years in the Night have changed the animals of Lucis and made them into something far, far worse. Something like the creatures in the deep, oppressive darkness of the dungeons beneath the darkest parts of the world.

And Gladio only has his fists.

The sabertusks keep coming, prowling in a languid, calculating rhythm to surround Gladio and Noctis. There are too many of them. Gladio’d thought that most of the roving packs had been killed, but it seems that not even the winter could drive the creatures back. 

“We can’t just run,” Noctis tells him sharply. “We can’t let them get to the rest of the city.”

“Like hell we can’t.”

“And let the people deal with them? No.” There’s an edge to Noct’s voice that doesn’t invite any argument. There’s the king in him again, threatening and dark. 

“This is supposed to be Iggy’s job,” Gladio snarls.

“Take that up with him later!” Noctis snaps. “For now, it’s just us.”

“Yeah,” Gladio retorts, “And we’re unarmed.”

One of the sabertusks snarls as if it can understand that he said that, and that the prospect pleases it. One of its packmates lunges forward, stopping just a few feet from Gladio, growling low in its throat. There’s something like foam frothing at its mouth, shining on its cracked yellow teeth and wickedly long fangs. Gladio bares his teeth at it; he’s not afraid. He’s just nervous. He’s just trying to think about what he can possibly try so that he can keep Noctis as safe as possible.

What is he going to do, what is he going to do-

_ How do I make sure Noctis won’t die again? _

And that’s where the fear is.

This is it. This is it.

“Gladio!”

Gladio flinches and turns back towards his ancestral home. There’s Iris standing in the doorway, framed by blazing golden light from within the house. She raises her hand in the air, and something glints like silvery steel, and she calls, “Catch!”

She throws something through the air, spinning in a deadly halo through the muted golden light of the street and the estate. “This is so dumb,” Gladio mutters to himself, realizing at once what it is. “This is so, so dumb.” But desperate times come for desperate measures, and he’s not the type of person to look a gift knife in the mouth. Or...something. Gladio tracks its spin, tries his best to think like Ignis does, and reaches out. 

He half expects his fingers to close around the hilt of his greatsword, but it’s the dagger that he plucks out of the air instead. With the way it’s moving, and the adrenaline in his veins, he’s almost convinced, for a heartbeat, that it’s magic.

Iris tosses another one when she sees that he’s caught it. This time, she throws it with less spin, knowing that Gladio’ll be catching it with his off hand. Gladio catches it by the hilt and flips the blades in his hand, trying to get used to their weight.

Gladio’s always hated daggers. They’re tiny and hardly pack a punch and they leave Gladio too open to attacks. He’d sooner use a greatsword or shield to defend his king. But he was raised to be bold, and he was trained to defend Noctis at all costs. Tonight, on the starlit asphalt, all he has are the daggers.

They’ll do for now.

He passes the second one to Noct’s waiting hand. Noctis flips the knife in his hand with a flick of his wrist, making the steel sing through the air. It’s wickedly sharp, even after all this time. “Off balance with just one,” Noctis mutters, pressing his back up against Gladio’s.

“All we’ve got at the moment,” Gladio retorts, keeping an eye on the circling beasts. Iris is approaching slowly, looking like scarcely more than a shadow in the dark. She’s waiting for the right moment to strike, and that won’t be until the fighting breaks out. For now, it’s him and Noct, surrounded by monsters in the darkness of Insomnia.

“Come on,” Noctis snarls, low and brutal under his breath, like he’s been itching for a fight since the day he died.

And that’s when they pounce.

One of the sabertusks, the one that had gotten close, immediately lunges for Gladio’s throat, snarling a challenge. Gladio bends his knees and rises to meet the beast as it pounces, reaching out his left hand to brace against the wiry fur of its chest and the right to slash across its throat. It scarcely manages another snarl before its throat splits under the keen edge of the blade, spraying Gladio with blood. Gladio shoves the sabertusk out of the way, letting the corpse thud to the ground. He hardly gets a breath in before the next two beasts lunge for him, and then it becomes a game of dodging and slashing and hoping for contact.

Gladio’s missed these games, and he finds himself smiling, baring his teeth at the mutated, wiry beasts.

Noctis peels away from his side to evade an attack, rolling under a pouncing sabertusk in a clumsy somersault. He’s out of practice, and he grunts when he hits the ground, but when he regains his balance, he buries the dagger in the stomach of the sabertusk and pulls, ripping through the underbelly of the creature. 

Gladio finds himself trying to swing the dagger like a greatsword out of habit, but the blade is short and light and he can’t possibly hope to use his brute strength alone to get out of this mess. He tries anyway, using his body as a weapon - as a sword, as a shield - and finds that he can’t get enough of how personal it feels to kill something up close. Maybe this is why Ignis uses his daggers with such fierce prejudice, or why Prompto kills everything from afar.

The weapon doesn’t matter. What matters is the king.

And then Iris joins the fray too, wielding an old ornate blade Gladio scarcely recognizes in the blur. But it’s the one he’d found in her room, the gift from their father, and she holds it in a tight reverse grip, slashing at the muzzle of one of the slavering beasts. Her eyes hold a brutal vitality Gladio hasn’t seen since she’s returned to Insomnia, focused on any and all threats in her path.

Shield of the People, indeed. The way she moves is in a style unlike any Gladio has seen before: she retains the easy acrobatic grace that she’d used to her advantage when fighting MTs in the age of the empire, but she combines that with heavy blows backed up by Amicitia strength. A sabertusk bowls her over from behind, jaws snapping towards her throat, and she rolls with it, landing so that she’s on top of it, bearing down with her full weight and momentum. There’s a sickening crack of the creature’s ribs, and she adjusts her grip on her blade before plunging it down blindly into its side. The sabertusk squeals and falls limp beneath her.

Iris leaps to her feet, rolling her shoulders and grinning at Gladio before she leaps to Noct’s side to tackle a group of three of the feral beasts.

The three of them have only ever fought like this once before, back when they were on the run to Cape Caem. Even then, they’d had Prompto and Ignis as well, but now it’s just them: two Shields and a king against creatures turned deadly by the Night. 

“Noct!” Iris calls, rolling with a beast clinging to her back, and Noctis dives in to bury his knife in its eye, freeing Iris from its grip. He pulls her up in a fluid motion, setting on her feet with a grin.

And then-

It happens in slow motion.

A sabertusk lunges from the shadows and grips at his dagger arm with sharp yellow teeth. Noct cries out and drops the knife, and blood starts to run down his fingers in deep scarlet rivers that twist and merge with the fiery lines of his veins. The air, already iron-scented, fills with the faint smell of burning.

“Noct!” Gladio roars, and everything in his vision tunnels until all he can see is  _ Noct, Noct, Noct. _

It’s not any sort of mortal peril, not yet, but Gladio knows beasts and he knows that the others will sense Noct’s weakness. Already, a scrawnier sabertusk is bounding in from the outskirts of the pack to take advantage of the disarmed king.

Not this time. 

Something in Noct’s gaze is screaming  _ anything, anything- _

He’d do anything for Noctis.

Gladio moves more on instinct than anything else. He hadn’t even realized he’d started running, but he’s already halfway to Noctis, bending to scoop up the blade he’s dropped, and then he’s bringing his fists down on the neck of the sabertusk that’s harming Noctis, plunging the blades down into its neck with a force fueled by rage and fear.

The beast crumples under the weight of the blow, and its jaws go slack around Noct’s arm. Gladio doesn’t stay still long enough to savor the sight. His vision is already locking onto the next threat to his king, and he turns to intercept its leaping attack, putting himself between it and Noctis.

It barrels into him at full speed, but Gladio’s ready. He raises his knives in anticipation, catching it in the throat even as its long claws scrabble to get purchase on his chest. He winces at the slash and burn of them, but it’s worth it to watch the creature’s eyes go dark as it bleeds around his knives.

Iris whirls and grabs the final sabertusk by the muzzle, knocking it to the ground with a savage kick and snapping its neck as it twists and falls.

And then it’s just them breathing, panting into the night. And surrounding them, the cooling bodies of the sabertusks send steam into the winter air.

Gladio drops the knives to the dark, blood-spattered pavement and tries to get his breathing back into a rhythm that doesn’t make him feel like his world is ending. 

Iris whistles. “You okay, Gladdy?” she asks cautiously.

Gladio nods numbly. “The knives,” he says, when he’s sure that his voice will yield words other than  _ Noct.  _ “That was a good idea.”

She shrugs. “Helps when your whole house is an arsenal.”

He almost laughs, and Iris must see it in his eyes, because she grins and nods. Gladio turns back to Noctis, who’s standing now, clutching at his black-clad arm. In this light, Gladio’s not sure which parts are actually black and which are slick with blood.

“Your arm-”

Noctis glares up at him, suddenly sullen and twenty again. “I’ve had worse.”

“I can smell the burning.” The burning from the dawn, from the brutal magic that used Noctis to destroy a plague and ignite the sun. It scares him that it’s always there as a reminder of what they lost with the dawn, and what they gained as well.

“Just a side effect. It’ll heal.” Noctis frowns down at the arm and shakes his hand a little, scattering his own blood across the asphalt.

Gladio isn’t one to take stock in magic none of them understand. “You didn’t heal when you tried-”

Noctis shakes his head to cut him off. “That was different,” he tells Gladio in a tone both firm and miserable.

Gladio decides to drop it.

But Noctis says, quietly, “Gladio. Thanks. For saving me.”

Gladio nods.

_ I was your Shield. _

“Noct, we need to tell Ignis about this,” Iris points out. “And Dave too. He needs to know that there are creatures far worse than normal.”

“We saw them in dungeons,” Gladio says. “Ten years ago, when we were hunting for gil. There are worse dungeons than just caves and mines, and they had daemons and twisted, deep, dark creatures. Scourge effects, probably.”

Iris hums thoughtfully. “Guess there were more in the sewers beneath Insomnia. That or the entire pack made its way here without anyone noticing, hunters or Crownsguard or otherwise. We need to step up our patrols or something.”

Gladio shakes his head in disgust and kicks at one of the bodies, frowning at the way the blood transfers to his boot. And, okay, he should have expected that, but. Come on. “I can’t believe-”

“Take note of the counts,” Noctis says suddenly. “The counts - how many of them. Prompto’s gonna want to know.”

Gladio rounds on Noctis, and a laugh bubbles its way up from his lungs, incredulous and loud. “All this, and you want to count the bodies?”

“The one time I try to actually do my job, Gladio,” Noctis says in a voice that’s faintly threatening, but his eyes are gleaming with decade-old mischief.

Gladio puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t let me get in the way of His Majesty,” he teases.

“You are,”

“It’s the old age,” Iris chimes in, elbowing Gladio sharply in the ribs. “He lost all his fun when he hit thirty.”

“Thought you were gonna say twenty,” Noctis replies, smirking. He ducks out of the way when Gladio takes a half-hearted swipe at him, evading his attempt to get Noct underneath his arm. When he pops back up again, his hair swishes across his face, fracturing his smile into moonlit sections, and his laugh fills the empty street.

“We need to get out of here.” Gladio rolls his shoulders, trying to loosen his battle-tense muscles. “There could be other packs out here, and they’ll smell the blood.”

Iris grimaces. “These aren’t even my fatigues.” She pokes at bloodied claw marks in her dark pants. “These’ll need mending.” She sighs and shrugs. “Nothing to be done. We’re alive, and that’s all that matters, I guess.” She runs up to the house and ducks inside. The soft light from inside flickers off and then Iris comes back from the house with the bag of treasures they’ve retrieved.

She looks back over her shoulder, brows drawn into a frown. “Should I...lock the door?”

Gladio shakes his head. “Don’t bother,” he mutters. “The damage is done.” Anything that could have happened to their home has already come to pass. 

“Are you going to rebuild it?” Noctis asks, staring up at the dreamlike hulk of the Amicitia house and the way it’s painted in street lights and the chilly blush of the moon.

It’s the second time someone has asked him that. “I should.”

“You should, maybe,” Noctis agrees. “But what do you want to do?”

_ What do you want? _

“I don’t know,” he says on instinct.

His father might have insisted.

But his father is dead and buried, and his ghost doesn’t need to haunt this house anymore. They’ve all got pieces of him now: shields and robes and every word he ever spoke to them.

“I miss him,” he whispers.

Iris and Noctis press close to his sides - siblings both, twin forces belonging to the night and to the dawn. Their heads find his shoulders in an unspoken unison. They both know him so well, and they’ve taken back their easy places at his side. 

“I miss him, too,” Noctis murmurs into his ear, voice tight with unshed tears. Gladio’s not sure who he’s talking about. He’s not sure he minds.

“I think I’ll rebuild it,” he rasps. “For him. For the citizens. For the Crownsguard. Anyone who needs it.” 

Kids under pressure, people running from something - they could find a place here. Destiny won’t hold sway in these walls once he’s built them.

Iris nods against his shoulder. “I think he’d like that,” she tells him quietly.

Gladio thinks so too.

He’s not the Amicitia his father wanted him to become. Noct’s a king when nobody expected him to be one.

But now Noct is the king.

And Gladio’s the Shield Noctis needs. The Shield Noctis can rely on. The Shield Gladio wants to be.

“Come on,” he tells them, and when he smiles, his heart feels warm and heavy with the emotions he’s finally allowed himself to thaw. He likes the weight; it keeps him grounded. “We’ve got work to do.”

Noct’s knuckles knock against his in a silent acknowledgement, and Iris offers him a starlit hint of a smile.

It’s not perfect; it never is.

Gladio’s never expected it to be perfect. If there’s anything he knows he wants, it’s this: him and Noct and Iris, bound by duty and bound by blood. They’re people from the night who fell out of place with the dawn, only to pick each other back up. Without saying it, they know what they need. Even without the magic of the Crystal to bind them together, Gladio has always known Noct.

He walks into the night, sister and brother at his side, through the low lights and shining steel of the city they now rule. It’s not spring yet, and it won’t be for some time, but right now Insomnia’s quiet moonlight reminds him of some time ten years ago; of long days and nights on the road underneath the stars.

Tonight, with them, it feels like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of Gladio's story! 
> 
> So this chapter doesn’t have quite the level of lightheartedness that Prompto’s does. That’s the thing: Prom’s story is about being happy again. Gladio’s is about feeling again. So the big guy is coming to terms with himself and his feelings, and with living in the daytime. I still think that he’s in a better place. He’s got people who love him. :) 
> 
> Next up: Ignis!


	24. ignis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally.

Ignis Scientia is not easily fooled.

He knows when he’s awake and when he’s dreaming. There are a few key tells to tip him off - some more obvious than others, especially now - and motivate himself to depart from a land of wishfulness. Idle fantasies have no purpose when reality waits for him in his waking moments.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t indulge.

In the dreams, he can see.

The memory of sight is something he both craves and dreads. In the darkened moments between stretches of consciousness, he can slip into the persona of the man he’d been ten years ago. That Ignis had been bold and proud and precise. And, of course, Ignis is still that man now, somewhere. Somehow. But it’s just not the same as the dreams.

When he opens his eyes on tonight’s dream, he smiles, and he blinks into the sunlight of a Lucis he’d once known.

He’s somewhere, running. Somewhere blue. The ground is firm beneath his feet, with gravel giving way to grass as he runs. Somehow, he knows where he’s going, and he sprints tirelessly, taking in the sights of old metal and forgotten scraps of life. It’s the Lucis it has always been - old and weathered and war-torn - but it’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen. And he runs through it, pulled by the force of his subconscious mind, emerging from the ruins and out into the sunlight and warm wind off the water. And this place-

This place is familiar enough. Insomnia gleams in the distance, linked to their world by the silvery expanse of its bridge. A tenuous link, at best. This view means only one thing. Ignis knows the sight. The last time he’d been here with his sight, it had been gray and stormy and miserable.

The hill where they’d lost it all.

And there’s Noctis, standing atop the hill with his hand on the hilt of his sword. He turns when Ignis approaches.

He’s young.

This is the Noctis Ignis remembers. This is the prince that stared at the ruins of his city and decided to keep moving. This is the prince who Ignis has always known; this is the prince he’d sworn his allegiance to. This is the prince who Ignis had believed would one day become king.

It’s an impossible sight, and a welcome one.

Noctis blinks up at him, eyes gleaming first red, then blue, then red again, changing forms between Ignis’s prince and the avenging tool of the gods. Either way, he is dangerous. Either way, he is terrifying. Either way, he is beautiful.

“Noct,” Ignis murmurs, and he runs a finger along the flawless line of Noct’s jaw. He never could have done this with his prince, before. Before. Before-

“Ignis,” Noctis says, voice young and smooth and achingly familiar, even after ten years of longing. “We have to go back.”

If Ignis squints into the sunlight, he can see the smoke rising from distant spires. Insomnia is burning. It’s burning. “We can’t,” he says. “We can’t go back. Not there.”

“We have to go back,” Noctis insists. “To Insomnia.”

Ignis reaches out and grabs Noct’s wrist, lifting his hand from the hilt of the engine blade. “Stay here,” he begs. “With me. We can be safe here.”

Noctis smiles sadly, and his arm twists in Ignis’s grip, shifting so that their fingers intertwine. “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know,” Ignis breathes, because he knows. Even in this dream, he knows that this Noctis is the same one who stood with him on the last of endless nights, overlooking a world ruined by darkness. He knows that this Noctis has made his peace.

“You know,” Noctis agrees. “You know the cost of the dawn.”

He leans closer, and their foreheads are touching. Ignis closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of steel that has always followed Noctis, like a promise of the armory stored away beneath his skin. He’s never gotten this close before. This is an impossible dream. This is a fantasy, and this is dangerous, and Ignis should wake up but he can’t bear to. Not now. Not when he’s so close.

“Ignis,” Noctis whispers.

Ignis presses his hand to Noct’s chest, trying to get closer, and his fingers immediately feel warm and wet where they splay across Noct’s fatigues. Ignis backs away from Noctis on instinct, and his nostrils fill with the scent of blood. “Noctis,” he whispers in horror, staring at Noct’s chest. There’s a gash in his dark clothes, spreading an even darker patch across his entire chest. He’s wearing the suit that he died in, but this is the wrong Noctis. This shouldn’t be happening. Noctis is still young. They still have time. They should still have time.

“Ignis?” Noctis whispers again, brows creasing into a frown that makes him look young and afraid. Ignis hasn’t seen him look this broken since he’d mourned his father in the Tomb of the Wise. “Ignis, what’s happening?”

“You still have time,” Ignis assures him, but his voice is cracking. “Noct, you’ll be okay.”

Noct’s eyes are blown wide with mounting panic. He chokes and coughs, and his lips are spattered with scarlet. When he blinks again, his eyes are mismatched and unsettling, blazing red on the right and blue on the left. The discordance reminds Ignis of grief and of cold throne rooms like tombs.

Ignis reaches out to grasp his hand again, but where his fingers touch Noct’s right hand, the skin beneath turns  _ wrong. _

Something is crawling up Noct’s flesh with the inexorable hunger of a predator. It turns his skin to a cracking, shifting gray, shot through by tendrils of impossibly bright scarlet. There are no flames, but Ignis can feel the blazing heat of Noct’s immolation. He can smell it. And Noctis is screaming.

“Ignis!” he cries, and he’s burning.

Ignis tries to help - tries to fix him - but his frantic hands only make the scars spread faster, and Noct begins to crumble to rubble, to dust, to ashes.

Too close, he got too close-

His vision begins to cloud, and Noct’s face is fading, screaming and smoldering, from his sight. Ignis reaches for him, trying to cling to the fragile memory of sight, but his mind and body betray him. He’s blind in the dark, and he always will be.

“Ignis!”

Ignis snaps awake and immediately lunges to the side, scrabbling beneath his pillow for a dagger. Someone’s in the room with him, and his heart is pounding and he can’t  _ see _ them. He wraps his fingers around the hilt of one of his daggers and whips around, reaching out for the source of the too-close voice at his bedside. He makes contact with a solid, warm body and latches on with one arm, pulling the intruder close and bringing his dagger up to press against a bared throat. Whoever it is makes a flustered, sputtering noise, trying to pull away from the blade. They won’t get away that easily.

He bares his teeth - something is here for him and he can still smell the burning - and prepares to attack. “You have two seconds,” he hisses.

“Ignis, hang on - Specs!”

That gives him pause. Ignis halts for a moment, blade pressed up against a throat he can’t see. The voice is so familiar. 

A too-warm hand wraps around his wrist, not moving the knife away, but just holding him there. Steady. Burning.

Ignis almost swears, decorum be damned. “Noct?” he breathes, incredulous and confused and still rattled.

“Morning, Specs,” Noctis says quietly, voice almost cracking around the relief in his voice.

“I could have killed you,” Ignis tells him, and that’s when the panic sets in a little bit.  _ Gods, I could have killed him. _

“Still can,” Noct says matter-of-factly, low and calm and careful.

Ignis realizes that he still has his knife to Noct’s throat. His king’s throat. He  _ does _ swear this time, lowering the knife and letting go of Noctis, backing away to the safety of his headboard. He presses his back up against the sturdiness of it, taking solace in its reliability. At least he knows that this is real. Here, now, is real. Noctis is alive. Noctis is safe. He’s real. This is real. He slowly slips the dagger back beneath the pillow beside him and tugs his knees up towards his chest. He’s too close to Noctis right now.

_ Too close, too close- _

“Why do you have a knife under your pillow anyway?”

“Old habits,” Ignis explains, mind reeling. There had been more savage things in the dark when he was still living in the Night, and times when the cracked havens had flickered and allowed daemons to creep over to his bedroll and try to take his life. Ignis had gotten caught off guard once. Once, and that was it. It’s been months, and still he’s on that hair trigger. “I wasn’t expecting to be woken like that, Noctis.”

Noctis at least sounds vaguely cowed. “Sorry, Specs.”

“It’s the middle of the night.” That much, he knows. It must be, if Noct’s awake. He’d never get up early just to wake Ignis. “You should have known.” He’s snappish, sure, but it’s late and his heart hasn’t slowed.

“I know.”

Ah, now he just sounds miserable. Ignis tilts his head and sighs. “It’s no harm done, though. I suppose you had a reason for risking death to wake me?” He eases a bit, stretching a leg back out along his sheets.

“Here, c’mon. You’re awake now.” Noctis tugs at his arm. “Come on. Get up. We’re going out.”

Ignis allows Noct to drag him to his feet out of instinct. “Noct, what-”

“No questions.”

Ignis halts and tugs to try to get his wrist out of Noct’s grip. “Noct, where are we going?”

“That’s a question. You’re fine, Ignis, c’mon.”

“I’m a  _ mess- _ ”

“Come on, Ignis. Trust me.”

“I’m finding it hard,” Ignis sighs, and he stands beside the bed, looking towards Noctis. “Where are you taking me?”

“Outside.”

“Outside-”

“Get dressed. Warm clothes.”

_ “Warm clothes-” _

“Specs. You’re overthinking things again.”

Ignis glares in Noct’s general direction but stalks over to his wardrobe. This is not what he was expecting to have happen tonight. He’s quite tired. And really, he’s not in any condition to be up and about. He’s definitely not dressed for the occasion; his thin pajama pants surely won’t protect him from any semblance of cold.

He half looks over his shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he informs Noctis tersely, stepping out of the pajamas and tugging a pair of uniform pants on instead. They’re not his usual fatigues of choice, but they’re here and they’re what fit right now, and he can’t afford to be picky when it’s the middle of the night. 

It’s hard to ignore the fire and ice weight of Noct’s bicolor gaze, flickering to and away from him as he quickly dresses. He doesn’t address it; he only tugs a thick sweater from the wardrobe and throws it on to cover his bare chest, internally grimacing at how incongruous the sweater must look with his fatigues.

“I didn’t know you had scars on your chest,” Noctis comments quietly.

Ignis pauses and raises an eyebrow before dropping to the ground to tug on a pair of thick combat boots. “You’d be surprised,” he tells him, “at how many scars I’ve received in the line of duty.” All their time together, and Noctis had never noticed? Truly? Idly, he twitches the muscles at his left shoulder, feeling the unnatural stretch and pull of the scar tissue there. Blades and burns.

Noctis falls quiet and the clashing temperature of his gaze leaves Ignis for a time. His footsteps softly sound around the suite as he wanders, stopping here and there. He must have turned the lights on, then. There’s not much in here for him to see: stacks of carefully labeled files, maybe, or Ignis’s personal computer, or perhaps the stack of photos from Prompto that Ignis hasn’t gotten up the courage to put away just yet. 

“I’m bringing a blade,” Ignis warns Noctis, and he tucks one of his daggers into his boot.

“Bring two if you want, but I doubt you’ll need them.”

Ignis carefully straps his other dagger into its sheath and frowns up at Noctis. He doesn’t think he trusts the airiness in his tone. “You seem to have an idea of what’s out there,” he suggests quietly in a way that’s not really a suggestion.

“Ah. Word of mouth.”

Noctis is a terrible liar, but Ignis won’t fight him on it. He’s too tired for this. He rolls his eyes and stands, rolling his head around to loosen his muscles. The gods only know what waits out there in the city. Ignis really isn’t in the mood to be caught off guard by a mutant hundlegs again. “Ready?” he asks, swiping his visor from the bedside table and fitting it over his eyes. Secure in the safety of the anonymity the large lenses allow him, he’s prepared to go out and face the frigid darkness of the world outside.

There’s the soft whisper of paper being placed down on wood - the photos, surely - and Noct’s footsteps approach quickly. “Coat?” he asks.

“It’s at the door.” He heads briskly towards the exit of his suite and tugs the thick winter coat from the hook there, slipping quickly into it. He glances over his shoulder again. “Coming?”

Noctis hurries to his side, slipping out the door when Ignis holds it open for him. “You’re surprisingly awake for someone who was just violently woken up.”

Ignis sighs. “What time is it anyway, Noctis?”

“It’s, uh, hang on-” Noctis fumbles around at his side. “Past midnight.”

_ Dear gods.  _ “How far past?” he asks, dreading the answer.

“You don’t want to know.”

Ignis closes his eye for a moment. “I thought as much.”

Noctis prods him towards the elevator and they descend through the sleeping Citadel. Ignis pointedly doesn’t speak to Noctis; he’s allowed his little spells of pettiness, is he not? He tries to hide the way his hand is still twitching in the muscle memory of self defense. His mind is still taunting him with the acrid memory of burning and the tantalizing bit of sight he’d had in his dreams.

_ Too close- _

He puts it out of his mind. It was just a dream.

Their combined footsteps echo through the empty, wide expanse of the lobby. It reminds Ignis of the climb to the throne room at the end of the Night, with the Citadel eerily alive around them. Now, though, it’s not dead. Just sleeping. Just waiting for the next dawn.

Ignis winces at the chill wind that rushes into the lobby when Noctis throws a door open. It’s colder outside than he’d thought. He’s starting to regret agreeing to this.

There’s a shifting of armor and weapons once they reach the gate. Ignis doesn’t envy them; the night shift in the winter is a terrible one indeed. They allow Ignis and Noctis to pass with nothing but quiet murmurs of “Majesty”. The Crownsguard all know their faces well enough now; Ignis had seen to that. And they’re subtle, for the most part. Luckily, enough of them know now that there is no glory to be found in battle or defending their king. Ignis had made sure to work with Cor to train that out of them.

They know that heroes don’t last long in Insomnia.

The two of them make their way quietly through the streets of Insomnia, with Ignis trailing behind Noctis. He really hopes Noct knows where he’s going; he’d never been much good at navigation back when he drove through these streets, and Ignis can’t help him now like he used to.

Ignis sighs, blowing a strand of hair out of his face. He can’t be bothered to take his hands out of his pockets right now. It’s too cold for that, and far too late. He must really look a mess like this; his hair is meant to be viewed when it’s styled. Not like this, flat and wild and falling in wayward strands across his face.

“Your hair is longer than I thought,” Noctis says suddenly, voice soft and thoughtful on the winter air. 

Ignis frowns. “It’s usually styled, Noctis.”

He can practically hear the pout that Noctis makes - it’s nearly at Prompto’s level, truly. “Why the mood?”

“Noctis, it’s late and it’s cold.”

“It’s not snowing!” Noctis protests. “C’mon, we’re bundled up.”

“You have my good scarf.” Noct had never given it back after the visit to the lake. Ignis had liked that scarf.

“I brought one of mine. Here.”

He’s expecting to feel the soft familiar touch of his own scarf, but instead Noctis shoves something thick and woolen into his hands. Ignis thoughtfully rubs his fingers over it, and he almost asks for his own back, but he thinks better of it and wraps this one around his neck instead, burying his nose in the warmth he finds there. It smells familiar, like elegant cologne and steel and the smoke of a campfire, sharp but comforting. 

He likes it.

“Where are we going?” His memories of Insomnia before the Fall are tinted by his sight instead of his feeling. He’s trying to count his steps and map their turns to the layout of the city he remembers from his youth, but it’s hard, especially this late at night.

“Not far,” Noctis assures him.

They haven’t been walking for long. No more than ten minutes, perhaps, through the rubble-strewn streets. 

The city has that sort of silence that happens during the calm before a storm or the quiet inception of a blizzard. If Ignis didn’t know any better, he’d say it’s about to snow. But there hasn’t been snow for years, and he won’t hold on to empty hope. Instead, he imagines that Insomnia is just sleeping around them. If he were a more idealistic person, he’d imagine that there could be people in the buildings that flank the ruined streets. But this part of Insomnia is still dead and burnt, devoid of much life other than the monsters that lurk in the ruins. He knows, though, that there are pockets of the city where the people of Lucis and beyond have set up their homes. Somewhere in the mass of steel and stone, Ignis’s people endure.

Elsewhere, Insomnia survives.

“This is our stop,” Noctis tells him.

Ignis takes a few more steps into the street before he halts, planting his booted feet in the rubble and glass. They haven’t gone far. He closes his eye and tries to recall where they could be. Try as he might to envision the harsh angles and steel of Insomnia, his mind keeps taking him to the hill on the other side of the water, where Noctis had waited for him. He shakes his head, trying to clear the acrid smell of burning from his memory.

“Figured it out yet?” Noctis asks, and there’s something playful in his voice. Like a challenge.

This close to the Citadel, there are only a few places that Noctis could have deemed suitable for visiting at this ungodly hour. Ignis is sure that they’ve gone in the opposite direction from the Amicitia estate, so it can’t be that. But this is still the higher-end district, with its high-rises and the shattered remains of embassies that Ignis had once frequented.

Ah. There can only be one place in this part of the city that Noctis would care about.

“The apartment,” Ignis murmurs in wonder. “It still stands?”

“Well. Kind of.” 

He’s not wrong about that. The wind whistles around them in a discordant melody, suggesting holes in buildings. The footing is uneven here, too. The Fall hit this district hard.

“It’s intact,” Noct tells him, “more or less. Roof’s a little worse for wear, but the apartment’s still there, shockingly.”

“Is it safe?”

“Should be.”

“Have you come back here before?”

“Prompto took me. He seemed to understand.”

Ah. The longing. The search for some fragment of familiarity and identity in a city long-foreign. Ignis can’t say he relates; there have been few places he has ever called home, and most of them are in the Citadel. The other, though - well. It’s here. “Has he even gone back to his own house?”

“Wouldn’t say.”

Ignis frowns. He hums a quiet affirmation and allows Noctis to gently lead him towards the entrance of the bombed-out apartment building.

They ascend through a frost-bitten stairway that Noctis insists is safe. It’s a long way to the penthouse, and Ignis steels himself for a cold ascent.

And there’s a faint glint of redness in the back of his awareness, familiar and warm, from where he knows Noct is climbing beside him. It’s not so much a sight as a feeling, running from Noctis to the stairs beneath their feet, always just a step ahead. Occasionally, Noctis grabs him lightly by the elbow, holding him there as the warmth travels ahead of them before he allows Ignis to place his foot on the next step. Ignis doesn’t question it; the stairs feel sturdy enough when he steps on them, so he can’t imagine the reason for Noct’s reservations.

“Too many stairs,” he mutters. “We need the elevators.” Of course it’s not feasible; if anything, this building should be torn down for its probable structural instability, but Ignis will choose to ignore that for tonight. He’s curious about what he’ll find.

“It’s good exercise. Thought you of all people would understand.”

“I wasn’t expecting to get exercise past midnight,” he says acidly.

“Keep an open mind.”

Ignis snorts and kicks a piece of rubble out of his way. “You never would have climbed these stairs ten years ago. If I had even suggested it, you would have gone to sleep in the car rather than go up to the apartment.”

Noctis chuckles at that, and he briefly reaches out and places his splayed fingers at the small of Ignis’s back, guiding him away from a chunk of stone that has fallen into their path. If his hand lingers there before he removes it again, neither of them mention it.

They continue to climb.

Thankfully, the apartment building is far from being a skyscraper, and the two of them are still relatively in fighting shape. They’ve run farther during their long explorations of Lucis, and climbed higher when they scaled Ravatogh. This is nothing when it comes to exertion. Somehow, though, the ascent weighs on Ignis with something other than fatigue. Something like anticipation, or fate.

“Here,” Noct says quietly, breaking the silence that had only been filled with the solemn rhythm of their footfalls. He pushes open a door, and the two of them emerge at the penthouse floor.

Up here, the wind whistles down around them from above. The ceiling must be gone in places. Ignis shivers at the return of the gusts in earnest, tucking his face back into his scarf. “Home sweet home?” he suggests lightly.

“In your dreams,” Noctis snorts.

Ignis flinches. In his dreams-

“Shall we?” he asks, banishing the thought from his mind.

Noct’s paradox gaze falls on him for a few long seconds, unblinking in its intensity, but then there’s a rustle of fabric that sounds like a shrug. “Sure.”

Ignis tilts his head, waiting for the telltale click of a lock or the creak of old hinges. Instead, all he’s met with is wind and silence. He blinks. “Noct.”

“Ignis?”

“Do you need to open the door?”

“Oh. The door’s gone.”

“Gone as in broken down, or…?”

“No,” Noctis says conversationally, and his voice starts to move away into the apartment. “Gone as in  _ gone.  _ Exploded. Bombed. Burned, maybe? There are some wood shards around, so maybe that.”

Ignis frowns and follows Noct into the apartment. The Nifs had been looking for the prince, hadn’t they? Would they have come barging into this space - this, the last private place in Insomnia where Noct found comfort? The thought fills him with a sort of burning fury from the place in his stomach where the poisonous, monstrous part of him lives. He quenches it, though, with the knowledge that Noctis still lives and that the empire had not won. They still have the dawn, and now they still have this apartment, or what’s left of it. He pauses just beyond the doorway, or what’s left of it, and stares up to the sky. The way that things sound, the roof must be nearly entirely gone here. Everything sounds strangely muffled out here, as if some power still holds this place intact.

Maybe it was just waiting for them to return.

His shoes crunch on frostbitten rubble and shards of glass. When he lifts his foot to take a step, he kicks pieces of it across the ground; they skitter across the floor with a discordant clinking. It’s eerie, this feeling of being out of place: here he is inside an apartment he’s known for years, but he’s exposed to the city and the open air. Despite the absence of a roof or many of the walls, everything is still hushed. Up here, above the city, this place is still theirs.

Questing fingers find the tattered remains of a couch, probably long since decayed by time, fire, and moisture. He’d liked this couch. It had been a comfort to curl up here with a coffee and his reports when Noct was feeling particularly welcoming and when Ignis hadn’t quite been willing to return to his government-issue apartment.

“Did anything survive?” he asks, trailing his fingers along the spine of the couch as he continues.

“Most of it’s burnt. Some of the cookware is still good. Couple of sets of clothes were in chests and they made it. Everything else is just ashes.”

Ashes. Ignis rubs his fingers together, feeling the faint grittiness that has transferred to his fingertips. The friction is a faint comfort in the cold of the shattered apartment, like a memory of some past flame. “Which clothes?” Ignis wracks his brain for the memory of the contents of those chests. The answer eludes him. Some of Noct’s secrets have always been his own, not even known to Ignis.

“Formal clothes, mostly. Some of my parents’ old stuff too.” There’s an edge to his voice that tells Ignis that the conversation can stop there.

Ignis nods and heads toward the kitchen, tapping his fingers on the cracked countertop he finds there. “While I have to say that this is a welcome surprise, I can’t say I agree with the timing, Noct.” He turns. “Why are we here? Why now?”

“Here.” Noctis is closer than Ignis expects, and he almost flinches; he should have heard him stepping through the rubble. “Come sit over here.”

Ignis blinks down at him for a moment, then offers his hand for Noctis to take, allowing himself to be led back towards the living area. There’s a patch of the floor where Prompto and Noctis must have cleared some of the rubble away, because his boots don’t scuff against the harsh grit of stone and glass. Noct’s hand tugs on his, urging him downwards, so Ignis lowers to the ground, folding his legs up to keep them close and warm.

“Don’t move too far forward,” Noct warns. “The edge isn’t too far.”

Ignis subtly scoots a few inches backwards. “Good to hear,” he says faintly. “Remind me not to move.”

“Don’t move,” Noctis teases him lightly, settling in beside Ignis on the ruined floor of the apartment.

For a few heartbeats or minutes or more, the two of them enjoy the quiet certainty of the other’s company. It’s not often that they get time alone without the pretense of duty keeping them on track. While Ignis certainly doesn’t agree with the timing, he can’t say he’s complaining too much about events thus far. He hadn’t realized how much he’s missed this apartment.

He hadn’t realized how much he’s missed Noct.

And Noct’s been here the whole time. For three months, he’s been here, and they’ve slowly orbited each other, falling back into sync after a decade apart. But now, tonight, there’s an unspoken peace between them, like all of the pieces are falling back into place. There’s no duty holding them here. Ignis chose to come out here with Noct. Maybe that’s the reason for the hour. Maybe Noct wanted to see if Ignis would join him no matter the time.

“You know,” Noct starts quietly, voice rasping softly into the air between them, “I thought this was the place for this sort of thing. There aren’t enough lights on in this section of the city since it was so close to the Citadel. It got hit pretty hard. So it’s dim, y’know? Without leaving the city.”

“Is that so?” Ignis strains his senses to try to hear some semblance of city life below them. Before the Fall, before the Night, Insomnia had always been awake and bustling. But the air around them is muted, like the entire world is asleep around them.

“Look, I know that we used to - well. That one time - there were a few times, but really, we. Uh. You used to come out and teach me the stars.”

“I did.” Once or twice or a hundred times. They’re all the same and they’re all distinct; all of those little memories of moonlit nights on the outskirts of Insomnia are as precious to him as the stars in the sky.

“And I thought, hey, no better time than the winter to have clear skies and good stars. And I know it’s late, but. Uh. All the lights are out. Mostly, at least. So that’s why we’re here,” Noctis finishes with a little movement that Ignis figures is him gesturing helplessly to indicate the end of his thought.

“Stargazing?” Ignis asks, and he looks up.

“Yeah.”

“Noctis, I-” Ignis stops and tries to choose his words as delicately as he can. “Noct, I appreciate the effort, but I’m afraid I won’t be the best company for something like this.”

Noctis snorts, “Doubt it. I woke you up for a reason, didn’t I?”

“I’m sure you did, Noct. But I hope you realize that I cannot see the stars.”

“Well-” Noctis stops short. “Ignis, I  _ know _ you’re-” He gives up with a wordless noise of frustration, and it feels like he throws his arms up in defeat beside Ignis. “Forget about it. Forget it.”

“It’s a nice sentiment.”

“You hate it.”

“No, no,” Ignis cuts in smoothly. He doesn’t mean to be a bother, but he’s smiling a bit. This is so like Noct. “No, I quite enjoy the stars.”

“You’re laughing at me,” Noctis accuses, voice sullen and low. Ignis can practically see him like that, huddled up in his coat and scarf in the frosted rubble, pouting at something he regrets. “I can see you smiling.”

Ignis ducks his head, muffling his grin in the folds of Noct’s borrowed scarf. “Can I not smile, Noct?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

He admits, quietly, “I have missed the stars.” How long has it been? Over ten years now, surely, since the tragedy in Altissia. In the lit-up city, the constellations hadn’t been nearly clear enough. No, the last time must have been at Caem or on the road. Happier times, and far warmer ones besides. “It’s good to be beneath them once more.”

“You can’t see them.”

“I know they’re there. Just as I know the sun rises and sets. Just as I know that you’re here, next to me.” He shivers. “And for good reason, too.”

“Cold?”

“Of course.” 

“If you don’t wear your jacket,” Noctis says with a distinct lilt to his tone that tells Ignis that he’s imitating him.

Ignis raises an eyebrow. “Finally learning your lessons, Noctis?”

“Slowly,” Noctis jokes.

Ignis wrinkles his nose; the cold air makes the frames of his glasses chilly where they bump against his skin. He takes them off and tries to rub them with the edge of his jacket, trying to use friction to bring some heat into the material. Maybe it’ll work; he hasn’t encountered this kind of cold since before the Night. He frowns down at the visor and gives up; in weather like this, it’ll just get cold again soon enough. He moves to put the visor back on, but Noct’s hand reaches out and catches his wrist.

“Don’t bother.”

Ignis turns the visor over and over in his hands. “Why not?”

“It’s dark out. Only the stars and the moon. And I set up a lamp.”

“Where did you get a lamp?”

“Stole it from Gladio. He won’t mind.”

“Did you ask him?”

Noctis snorts. “‘Course not. I’m the king.”

“A dangerous attitude,” Ignis scolds, but he can’t keep the smile out of his voice.

“But really. The lamp’s behind us. Promise.”

Ignis, still faintly smiling, folds the visor up and tucks it away in one of the padded front pockets of his jacket. Now the winter wind snaps directly across his face, soothing decade-old burns and aches. Ignis closes his eye and turns his face into the wind, breathing in the scent of steel and the distant sea.

He’ll admit it: in an odd way, this is the most at peace he’s felt in ages. Years, maybe. A decade. Here, high above Insomnia, sitting beneath the ruined roof of Noct’s sanctuary, he feels untouchable.

But still the question nags at him. He turns and decides to shatter their peaceful silence. “We could have gone stargazing from the Citadel, Noctis. Why here? Why now?”

Noctis snorts beside him, reaching back to scratch at the back of his neck. “I’ll admit it. This was a horrible idea. I’m going about this all wrong, aren’t I?”

Ignis smiles a bit. “You’ve had better plans.”

“You’re always the one making the plans.”

“I can’t if you won’t tell me the end goal, Noct.”

“I just wanted-” Noctis stops and sighs. “I wanted to go stargazing because that’s what...y’know. Like it was what we did. That was our thing.”

“Our thing,” Ignis repeats. “Eloquent.”

“Shut up.” There’s no real malice behind it, though.

Ignis grins again, but he stays quiet.

Noctis blows out a soft, frustrated breath. “But really. This was something I thought was important.”

“We did plenty of other things.”

“But this was different. It was just us.”

_ Us.  _

The way he says it makes Ignis think that there is a certain weight that he can’t quite name. He bows his head, trying to come up with some response that will capture how much he likes the sound of that word.  _ Us. _

“Ignis,” Noctis says, and his name sounds like a command or a hymn in the voice of a king, “It was always more than just the stars.”

Somehow, Ignis knew this too. “It was,” he agrees before he knows what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter; it’s an instinct, and his instincts have never been wrong.

“But I have a question,” Noctis says, and though there’s anxiety coloring his tone there’s also relief, as if he’d needed Ignis to agree.

Ignis splays a hand out on the floor beside himself, sifting along the freezing material for something to hold on to. His fingers come up gritty, though: more ashes. Remnants of the Fall. “Ask away,” he urges gently.

“That night. The last night - before the dawn.”

“The campfire?”

“No. The stairs.”

The stairs. The rain. Ignis knows them. That had been the last time he’d heard Noct’s voice without the crushing weight of age-old grief. “The stairs,” he echoes. He knows them. He wishes he didn’t.

“Your last word to me was  _ Majesty _ .”

He nods. He can still taste the word on his lips. That time, on the stairs, standing before the looming hulk of the Citadel and destiny, the king’s title had tasted like saltwater.

“You knew I was going to die.”

“I did.” But he hadn’t thought about it. He couldn’t, not in the rain, not on those stairs, not with Noctis leaving the world to them. If he had-

“But you didn’t say my name.”

“Noctis-”

“I wanted to hear you say it. I needed to hear it.” 

When was the last time Ignis had used Noct’s name before he’d died? Some battle in Insomnia? Ifrit? The behemoth king? The other daemons? Ignis hadn’t realized that the word had meant so much. If he had, he’d have given voice to his selfish heart, because Noct’s name has always been his favorite way to tell him anything. If he’d said Noct’s name, would Noctis have stayed? Would he have turned around and left the world in the dark?

“Noctis, I-”

“You don’t understand,” Noctis says, voice low and shaking, “that making your peace is not the same as wanting to go.”

A stutter in his chest - Ignis bows his head. “Noct,” he murmurs quietly.

“No, Ignis,” Noctis cuts him off. “No, you need to know that I wanted - but I couldn’t ask-”

“Noctis,” Ignis interrupts, and he can feel the way his voice adopts a desperate timbre. “I am not easily shaken. I have never shirked my responsibilities as your advisor and as your friend. But knowing you were to die, I-” He halts around the angry knot in his throat; tries again. “The title was a defense. You have always been my king. I have always known my duty. Had I called you by your name, I would have-” He cuts himself off and shakes his head, trying desperately to get his words under control. “I don’t know if I would have been able to let you walk to your death like that.”

“Majesty,” Noctis murmurs thoughtfully. It sounds odd in his voice.

“You are, and always will be, my king. My life is yours, Noctis. I am your most loyal servant.”  _ Yours, yours, yours. _

Noctis doesn’t respond to that at first. He lets Ignis’s declaration fade away into the frigid air between them, leaving them only with wind and the memory of sound. Ignis gives him time. He knows how Noctis thinks, and he knows that he’s prone to long spells of silence while he gathers his thoughts into something he thinks is worth saying.

“Is that it?”

Ignis blinks. “Pardon?”

Noctis repeats, “Is that it?”

Of course it’s not. He has never just been the king. He has always been more. “But you are also my greatest, oldest friend.”

“That’s not it,” Noctis accuses again. “I know it’s not. You said something else the other day. In our office.”

“Our office.” When did he start thinking of it as theirs and not merely of Noct’s?

“That I’m your king. Your Noctis. All of that and more.”

Ignis draws in an unsteady breath and exhales on a soft murmur of “Noct.” So much more, if he’d allow himself. So much more, in those small fantasies; in those fragile indulgences.

Noctis is so close. “I think we both know what more means, Ignis.”

“Noct.”

“You said not today. What’s holding you back?”

Everything. Nothing.

His dream.  _ Too close, too close, too close- _

He steels himself with a sigh, taking solace in the frigid impersonal breath of the wind across his cheeks. “Noct, we can’t.”

There’s that furious, frustrated edge to Noct’s voice again, when he almost begs, “Why not?”

“There are so many reasons. You are my king-”

“My father was the king too. He loved my mother, and she was his childhood friend.”

_ Loved. _ The word falls so easily from Noct’s lips that Ignis almost shivers at the sound of it. But he’s just talking about his father. Surely he doesn’t mean it. Surely he must see that there are  _ reasons  _ why this cannot happen. Why this should not happen. “Noct, after everything I have done to hurt you, I can’t possibly impose myself on you once more.”

“Who said you were imposing? Who said I didn’t want you to be here? With me? Don’t I get a say in this too?”

“Yes, but-”

“If your only reason for not doing this is because you don’t think it’s right to be with the king, shouldn’t you ask the king?” Noct’s plaintive voice tugs at Ignis so much that he almost gives in, but he can’t. He must stay strong. “You know, you said once that rules are meant to be broken if they’re worth it.”

_ And you will always, always be worth it.  _ He remembers. Of course he does. He wasn’t lying.

Ignis blinks into the cold air, wishing for the sanctuary of his glasses. At least then, he could have given off the illusion of peace. Though Noctis would have seen right through him. He always has. “What says the king, then?”

“I need to know,” Noctis tells him, “what you want.”

_ What do you want? _

It’s a question he’s been expecting. There’s no question that the conversation has been leading to this. Noct is leaving this in his hands; it’s his decision to make. He sighs and straightens his shoulders, shrugging off the scarf around his neck. Everything is too warm; too much; too close. “What do I want? I want the world, Noctis. I want to travel. I want to feel my blades in my hands. I want to lead the Council and have a place in your throne room. I want to remain at your side, if you’ll have me.”

_ I want you. _

He can’t have him.

Noctis is the king.

If he weren’t the king - would there be a chance? There must be some place in Cavaugh or Cleigne where nobody will find them. Some island out on the Vesperpool with a dock and enough access to the mainland. There could always be jobs for them out in Meldacio. They’d be two strangers, blinded and scarred by the dawn. There’d be some other king, or some other fate, and the dawn would come, but they wouldn’t be there for it. They’d be elsewhere. Peaceful.

Ignis remembers enough of the look of Cleigne to conjure up an image of it in his mind. There’d be room between the drooping trees to build a cabin, or a proper house. A small one, though, and modest. They’ve never been ostentatious in anything they’ve done; it would be simple. It would be theirs. They’d keep it clean. Ignis would defend the house, of course. Noct would fish for them in the late mornings and on into the evening.

He can see it clearly: Noct, older and wiser and happier, blinking up at him from behind the jet-black curtain of his hair. His soft smile when the two of them joke over one of Noct’s less successful attempts at cooking. The stars above them, reflected into the waters of the Vesperpool at night.

It’s another of his dreams. Another fantasy. 

It could be perfect.

But it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be Noct.

Noct is the king. 

Ignis wants him. Ignis wants the king.

“Like you said,” Noctis tells him, words soft on the whispering wind, “when one is in charge...”

“One makes the rules,” Ignis finishes. He sighs. “You’ve gotten too good at this.”

“I learned from the best,” Noctis tells him, and his elbow gently comes around to nudge Ignis before it leaves again. Fleeting touches. They burn.

Ignis leans closer to the touch, chasing it. It’s too close, maybe, but he finds solace in the constant warmth of the king. And maybe Noct’s arm stills in its slow retreat, hovering in the space between them. 

“I’m making the rules,” Noctis says. “And I say that I want this, if you do.”

He wants this. He wants this. 

“But,” Noctis says, and his voice draws closer,  I won’t know until you say something.”

“There are so many things I could say,” Ignis says on the edge of a rueful laugh. “There’d be no time for them all.”

“Try me.”

Ignis touches his arm, the right one. He isn’t sure what it looks like, but he can feel the unnatural warmth of the skin there. And it’s soft too, like it’s about to crumble into ashes and carry his king away, never to be put together quite the same way.

He’d do anything to prevent that.

There’s something harder beneath his grasp: the rough sureness of scar tissue, striping down Noct’s wrist. And a pulse, warm and strong. Proof that Noct is alive and that he’s still breathing. Proof of Noct’s hurt and healing.

“I loved you, Noctis.” Ignis says. He stares up at the sky he cannot see and imagines all the stars. He’d loved them, once. Before.

Noctis is quiet beside him. “I know,” he finally says. “I knew.” He shifts, and the ghost of his hair brushes against Ignis’s cheek. “And now?”

Ignis doesn’t move. If he does, he’ll shatter. Or he’ll turn to ash, useless and powerless and used. His lips don’t seem to want to obey him, though, and they pull the words from the night air, exposing him under the light of stars he will never see. 

“I always will.”

The wind whispers into their vast silence. 

“I knew it,” Noctis murmurs into the shell of his ear. “I knew you’d say that.”

And then his nose bumps up against Ignis’s cheek, and then his nose, and their foreheads are touching. They’re just a breath apart, hovering there.

Ignis can still pull away. He can still recover from this, and return to duty and destiny and to how things have always been.

He doesn’t want to.

_ Damn the consequences,  _ he thinks, and he kisses Noct.

It’s tentative at first - just a brush of their lips as they find each other, lending heat to each other in the winter air. Ignis is almost tempted to think that he’s dreaming again, but his dreams have always ended before he could get this close.

And then Noct cups his cheek with a burning hand, and he sighs, and that’s when Ignis realizes that this is real.

The kisses turn open-mouthed, and they’re exploring each other, slow and steady and warm. They have all the time in the world now. There’s nothing keeping them from having this, and Ignis will take what he wants this time.

Ignis had always imagined, in all his dreams and forgotten fantasies, that Noct would be the one to kiss him. All he can think as he tangles his fingers in Noct’s hair is that this is so much better than he ever could have hoped.

In another world, before Insomnia, maybe it would have been different. They would have been more eager, more bold. Ignis would have been frantic, desperate to take in every bit of Noctis that he could. That Ignis, before Insomnia, would have let Noctis set his nerves afire with his lips and hands, all passion and flame. Before Insomnia, they would have been young, and naive, and scared to death of losing each other.

But they’re older now, and sadder than they had been. They’re two men, broken and reformed a hundred times, holding each other together under the lights of stars they’d sacrificed themselves to see. In this world, after Insomnia, Ignis has already lost Noctis. He knows the clawing ache of betrayal and guilt and the soaring light of relief. Ignis doesn’t need the urgency of not having enough time; he knows already what it would feel like to sit in a throne room without a king to rule it. Tonight, though, he cherishes the feeling of Noct’s breath hot and present and  _ alive _ against his skin, and that’s all the burning he needs.

“Years,” Noctis breathes when they part for air. “For years, Ignis, I’ve wanted this.”

That sends a thrill of warmth down his spine. Years that Noctis has spent wanting him. Wanting Ignis. Ignis knows that yearning. Years of wanting. Years of him knowing what he wanted, even if he could never put it into words. Now he knows. Now they both know. It has always been Noctis. 

“Years,” Ignis agrees, scarcely daring to pull too far away.

Noctis draws back for a second. Ignis wishes he could see his face, and instead he raises his thumb to run along the curve of Noct’s lower lip. He can feel the warmth and wetness there, proof of the kisses they’ve shared. He’s about to move his thumb away when Noct’s lips wrap around it, tentatively at first. Ignis draws in a breath, surprised, and he can feel Noct’s lips curve into a smile.

“Wicked thing,” Ignis murmurs fondly.

Noctis releases Ignis’s thumb, presses a quick kiss to his lips, and pulls away entirely.

Ignis chases him, blinking into the darkness, but Noctis murmurs a small assurance to him and moves with the easy grace of a predator, splaying a hand across Ignis’s chest for balance as he turns and climbs into Ignis’s lap. Ignis guesses the movement and helps him through it, holding him by the waist as he does it. It’s another touch he’d never thought he’d get, and he cherishes the steadiness of Noct’s hipbone in the hollow of his palm.

Noct’s older and larger now than he used to be, but he’s still smaller than Ignis, and too skinny for his own good, bundled up as he is. He fits easily atop Ignis’s legs, curling his own legs around Ignis’s waist. Now it’s Ignis who’s tilting his head up to steal another kiss, and then another, curling his fingers in the frost-touched strands of Noct’s hair to pull him even closer.

“Will you stay?” Noctis breathes, lips ghosting across Ignis’s.

Ignis smiles and presses his lips to Noct’s again, chaste and sweet and soft. He can feel Noctis smiling too. “Of course I’ll stay,” he murmurs, still so close.

“Promise me,” Noct orders him, voice thrumming with the power of gods and kings.

“I swear it,” Ignis tells him immediately. He doesn’t need to be commanded to swear allegiance to Noctis. That has always been implied; it has been his creed for so long that it’s in his bones. It’s in his mind, where he’s stored everything he can possibly know about Noct. It’s in his heart, where the magic once lived and where something new and warm has taken up residence. And now it’s more than duty, and more than friendship.

Noctis tucks his face into the crook of Ignis’s neck, pressing his lips to a scar he finds there. His nose is cold against Ignis’s neck, but Ignis can’t find it in himself to mind.

He takes a deep breath of frigid air, cold as the infinite blueness of Noct’s eyes and their old magic, and smiles up at the sky. It’s all inky blackness to him, but he can imagine the stars up above. How many times had he looked out from this apartment, out past the shimmering expanse of the Wall above the city, and wished for something more than duty? His uncle, when Ignis had still been a boy, had told Ignis that if he wanted something - really,  _ really  _ wanted it - he could wish upon a star. And Ignis had. There was so much he had wanted. He’d woven his fantasies into those constellations and taught them to Noctis, as familiar to him as his own heart.

Maybe he can see the stars after all.

“Do you mean it?” Noctis asks. He shifts on Ignis’s shoulder, hair tickling his neck as he turns to look up at Ignis.

“Mean what?” Ignis murmurs, still staring up at the stars.

“You’ll stay?” Noctis asks, voice carrying a note of hope that makes Ignis’s heart sing.

“Until the sun goes out again,” Ignis promises, “and through the night until the light returns once more. Even if I never see your face. Even if I must fight destiny to do so. I’ll be here. I’ll stay.”

It’s fitting that he’d speak these sorts of promises here. Here, where they have always been able to find their peace. Here, in the ruins of their city.

“You’ll see me,” Noctis says abruptly, voice cutting through their starlit silence.

“What?”

“You’ll see me,” Noctis repeats. “After. Out there, in the place where we go, there isn’t any pain. No injuries.”

“Until then,” Ignis says, “I’ll wait here. In my experience, there are no happy endings.” Only contented ones. Only the endings they settle for. Only the endings that are enough.

“There are,” Noctis says. “I promise.”

“The promise of a king,” Ignis warns, “is a heavy one indeed.” But he’s smiling, and he can’t help himself. There’s something in the way that Noctis sounds so earnest that makes Ignis desperately want to hold onto the promise.

“Ignis,” Noctis murmurs, voice scarcely distinct from the whisper of the wind.

“Noct?”

“I loved you, too.”

Ignis closes his eyes and savors the words. “And now?” he asks, repeating their earlier conversation. Now it’s Noct’s turn to confess.

Noctis lifts his head and presses his forehead against Ignis’s, raising his hands to frame his face. One warm, one cold, and Ignis wouldn’t have it any other way. “Always,” he swears.

Ignis shivers, and it’s not the cold. “Noct,” he murmurs, and they both know that he’s saying  _ I love you. _

Noct returns to Ignis’s neck, mouthing over his throat like he can’t get enough. Ignis lets him; savors the feeling of Noctis so close.

He’s close, and Noct’s not burning. Not anymore.

He blinks. Something has landed on his cheek. Something small. Something cold.

It can’t be.

“Snow?” Ignis asks, and he raises a hand to the sky. Little drops of frigid feeling paint themselves across his palm, spreading and melting against the warmth of his skin. Ignis smiles, breathless. They haven’t had snow in ages.

Noct lifts his head from Ignis’s neck and leans back in his grasp. He must be staring up at the sky. “Snow,” he echoes, “but there aren’t any clouds.”

Shiva’s parting gift, maybe.

Ignis finds himself laughing, reveling in the feeling of snow on his face. The flakes fall all around them, raising goosebumps where they land on his exposed skin. Ignis can’t see the snow, but he knows that it must be white and clean and that it carries no trace of the Scourge like it once had. It’s beautiful and he knows it. It must be, tonight.

Noct’s fingers trace along his jawbone, impossibly warm despite the winter air. He’s quiet for a while, seemingly content to slowly trace the lines of Ignis’s face as the snow falls around them. “You’re crying,” he murmurs, swiping a lukewarm tear from Ignis’s cheekbone.

Ignis stills and blinks. “Am I?”

Noctis leans closer and presses his lips to where tears streak across Ignis’s cheeks. He lingers there, breathing against his cheek with a steady sureness. He murmurs against his skin, “You were. But you’re smiling.”

He is. There’s still the edge of something wistful pulling at the corners of his mouth, and he’s not quite done laughing. But it’s softer now. Quieter. Ignis blinks against the sheen of tears on his unseeing eye and presses closer to Noctis. “I’m happy,” he admits. “It hasn’t snowed in years.”

Now it’s Noct’s turn to laugh, and he leans in to kiss Ignis once more. 

They can’t stay out here forever, much as Ignis would like to. The snow is falling in earnest, blowing around them on gentle gusts that send chills along his spine. It’s late, and the stars are still out, but sometime soon, the sun will rise.

“Here,” he urges gently, though he’s loathe to break their connection and expose them to the swirling snow.

Noctis whines a bit at that, but he’s Noctis, and that’s to be expected. He moves, though, breaking away from Ignis and clambering off of his lap with a grace that only he could be able to achieve. 

Ignis stands, blinking against the swirling snow. He tugs Noctis to his feet, and somehow Noct ends up pressed flush against his chest, pressing soft half-kisses along the line of Ignis’s jaw. Ignis allows it, closing his eye and raising a hand to card through Noct’s hair. His other fingers stay firmly intertwined with Noct’s, keeping him close. They stand there, swaying in the dark, two figures dancing high above their city.

“Let’s go home,” Noctis murmurs into his ear, low and sleepy and lazy.

Maybe the stars are gleaming down on them with a pattern that Ignis once wished upon. Ignis won’t know.

It doesn’t matter; Ignis knows their silver patterns as surely as he knows the sound of Noct’s voice. He’ll always have the stars. And by the gods, that’s enough.

Here, under the stars, everything feels worth it.


	25. noctis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finality.

He’d never thought he’d see winter in Insomnia again.

Noctis would be lying if he says he hasn’t missed this. Ten years - or ten millennia, or ten minutes, depending on how he thinks about the Crystal - had brought so many things into perfect clarity. The reality of Ardyn, the power of the gods, and the might of destiny and providence: they’d all consumed his thoughts through his long slumber. He can’t believe that he’d never once stopped to remember the snow. Somehow, though, that makes this season all the sweeter. It’s like the first time he’d ever seen snow, running out in the Citadel courtyards, marveling at the way the snow looked like sugar. His father used to call it Shiva’s gift. Noct’s inclined to believe him. Knowing what he knows now, he doesn’t doubt that the Glacian would make the winter beautiful for the sake of humanity.

The snow has fallen over Insomnia, blanketing the whole city in white. There’s a quiet beauty to the ruins like this: they’re waiting to be unearthed. Waiting to be rebuilt. Somewhere under there, the bones of old Lucis wait to be brought back to life. Today, though, the snows have abated, leaving the spires to glint in the sun.

Nobody’s looking at the skyscrapers today.

Noct's official coronation is a quiet affair.

Not for lack of attendees, though: the plaza surrounding the Citadel is packed with people, and there are more beyond the gates, clambering up for a look at the ascending monarch. They're people of all sorts, from all over the world. The dark-haired Lucian natives and braided Galahdians are there alongside Accordans and the fairer Tenebraeans and citizens of what used to be Niflheim stand beside them like old friends. In some ways, they are. In the ruined world of the Long Night, Lucis had become a haven, especially for those fleeing the Starscourge nexus at Gralea. Now, depleted in numbers but enhanced in spirit, the people of Eos have come together to pay their respects to the king who had offered his life to bring the sun back.

The quiet is for the ones they've lost. The ones who were destroyed in the Fall, and the ones caught in the middle of an ancient war. The ones who were turned by the Scourge and were burned to ash by the sun. The Night took so much from all of them, and nobody knows more of that than the rising king himself.

At the top of the steps of the Citadel, Noctis stands with his hands clasped behind his back. He's wearing his father's favorite cape and brace, and it feels right. The black fabric and gold chains clink and hang around him, stirring up a muffled music. It’s a familiar music, and a welcome one, calling up memories from nearly twenty years ago when the old king’s steps had been stronger and unlabored. They hadn't had the time or money to waste on making something new for him, anyway. Noct doesn’t mind, not really. It makes him feel closer to his dad.

Ignis stands at his right side, a constant quiet presence to keep Noctis grounded here at the top of these stairs. The dark glass of his visor is narrower now, revealing more of the dark scarring across his face. It’s a less strictly utilitarian design now: more elegant, more graceful, and more unabashedly Ignis. Noctis had asked why he’d changed the glasses and Ignis had simply said that he was unashamed of what he'd given up for the sake of his king and country; for his hearth and home and love. Today, he's not wearing his usual purple prints; instead, he's wearing his best black suit, the perfect picture of a shadow if not for the dark purple cape that’s fastened at his shoulders. It lends him some regality, like a vestige of the royal magic he’d once wielded. This isn’t just Noct’s celebration. Ignis is at last getting the praise he deserves for bringing the world through the Night. They’d called him the blind hero; the hero of Lestallum. Now, today, they just whisper his name, and just the sound of it makes Noct smile - a secret smile; a small one.

Prompto’s standing beside Ignis: a miracle nowadays. He’s still getting used to the concept of wearing the technology of the empire which made him, and he’s still pale more often than not, but the soft scarlet of his veins looks good against his black and red attire. Prompto looks good in Cor’s militaristic, functional old Crownsguard suit. Eyes bright, standing tall, Prompto looks at last like a Lucian warrior. Lionheart like his pistol. Lionheart like his father.

And Gladio - he’s radiant. He’s on Noct’s left, standing just behind him, half shrouded in a passing shadow. Shirking the light, he almost blends into the background, but no darkness can mask the brilliance of an Amicitia at their full potential. He’s wearing his father’s old black and gold, looking formal but dangerous like a King’s Shield always should. And he looks lighter, finally, like he’s made his peace. Today, Noct thinks that means happiness too.

Noctis had thought once that this moment would come sooner, and that he’d be younger and married and content. In his mind, this day would have been lighter and happier, and he would have worn two rings. He wears neither now. In his long-past fantasies, he would have been young and unscarred and everyone would still be alive and whole and happy. And his friends, of course, would have still had these positions of honor. They would have been his Glaives.

They’re still his Kingsglaive, of course, but today they’re more than that. The battle garb of the defenders of Lucis can hang in their closets for another day - one when the night might get a little darker and hope may begin to slip once more. But until then, they’re exquisite as they are. They don’t need the suits to remember that they once had the privilege of knowing the king’s magic. Already, Prompto’s starting to pick at the cuffs of his suit, and Ignis has adopted a soft, private smile that only they can see. Gladio nudges at Noct’s shoulder, and the contact brings them all knocking together, for how close they are.

The little contact grounds him more than Noct thinks they know.

If Noctis closes his eyes, he thinks he can feel his father at his side once more, smiling at the ascension his son was destined to never see. An unexpected ending for him, surely, but not an unwelcome one. Not anymore.

The master of ceremony is Cor. The Marshal is one of the only people left to them who had held any sort of position of power in the Lucis of old, and he’d known Noct’s father. He’d stood beside Regis at his own coronation, and he’d set Noctis on his journey for the Arms, and now it’s only fitting that he should be the one to bring Noctis into kingship.

He holds the Sword of the Father in his hands. It’s the only Royal Arm that they had been allowed to keep. A gift from the astrals to the Chosen King. Noctis hopes that he can feel Regis’s phantom warmth through the king’s blade; he hopes it brings Cor some sort of peace.

Cor’s voice rumbles across the plaza with a steady thunder, amplified by the speakers spread out among the people. “People of Eos, we gather here to crown the next in the ancient line of Lucian kings and queens. It is a coronation ten years late, but now we at last welcome a new king under the light of the sun.”

Noctis blinks into the light and looks up at the cloudless sky. The sun burns up there, offering its warmth to him with blazing consistency. He almost squints to block it out, but he welcomes the inconvenience of its burning. He’d died for this; he won’t trade the sunlight for anything. Not now. Not anymore.

Cor’s voice brings him back to himself, and Noctis returns his gaze to the Marshal and the crowds beyond. There are so many more of them than Noctis had thought. So many had carved a life for themselves out of the darkness he’d left them in, and now they’re here to reward him for bringing back the light. Cor’s words crackle through the static excitement in the air.

“Blessed stars of life and light-”

It’s a familiar phrase. Noct thinks of the Hydraean’s wrath and the smell of blood and salt. And the warmth. Long-gone magic. It’s fitting at a time like this. Luna’s legacy, even now. Maybe she’s watching too.

Cor stares at him calmly with his unfathomable storm-bright eyes. “By the will of Titan, I grant you strength. By the will of Shiva, I grant you endurance. By the will of Ramuh, I grant you wisdom. By the will of Leviathan, I grant you justice.”

The Sword of the Father glints in the winter sun, cold and unyielding.

“By the will of Bahamut, I grant you the means to protect your people.”

Cor raises the sword and levels it at Noctis, never moving his gaze. There’s something of a reminder in the look, taking them back to the Tomb of the Wise. This moment has been a long time coming.

Noctis almost flinches again, ready for Cor to sheathe the blade in the center of his chest. He waits for the shower of glass and crystal and magic, but it never comes. Instead, Cor shifts his grip on the sword, flipping it in his hand and offering the hilt to Noctis.

Noctis stares at it. He’d offered up the sword like this once. That was then. Now, the sun is shining, and the Lucii have had their due.

He takes it. The hilt fits as comfortably in his hand as he remembers. There’s no shower of sparks and crystal shards as he holds it, and no spectral shade of the blade rises up to meet him. There’s only the winter air, Cor’s gaze, and the sword of his father. It’s a sword fit for a king. When he stares down at it, clasped in his mismatched fingers, he can’t help but feel like this is right. This, here - it makes sense.

He raises the sword in the air and plunges it to the ground with the sound of steel and stone. He may not have the magic of the Crystal anymore, but the sword is still a relic of kings; it sinks into the stone of the steps of the Citadel.

The crowd’s restless murmuring turns to silence. Never once has Noctis heard Insomnia so quiet. 

The air crackles with something that could be magic, warming Noct’s hands and painting the edges of his vision with scarlet.

“Are you ready?” Cor asks, quietly, so that nobody can hear. Not even Ignis.

Noctis blinks at him and half shrugs before he straightens his shoulders. He nods instead, as firmly as he can muster. “I’m ready,” he says, so softly that only Cor and the gods could ever chance to hear him.

Cor reaches up, and there’s something shining in the sun, glinting in fierce angles and curves. The crown of the line of Lucis is small, but it still feels impossibly heavy when Cor pushes his hair aside and grants him his birthright. The crown fits snugly behind his ear, cold from the winter air but immediately warm when it tangles in his hair and against his skin.

Cor steps back and gives him a firm once-over. He nods. Turning back to the crowd, he announces, “People of Eos, I give you King Noctis Lucis Caelum, one hundred fourteenth King of Lucis, and the King of Light.”

Fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of the last of the Royal Arms, Noctis looks out at the people he died to save. 

The people who have crowned him king.

He shocks himself into smiling.

It’s taken him a while to realize. But now, knowing what he knows and having experienced what he has, Noctis understands why the astrals allowed him back. A gift. Another chance at peace before the final rest. The astrals had known, back in the first dawn over Insomnia, and they’d tried, in their own ways, to grant him a reward for what he’d done to bring their precious world back into balance.

If he squints, he can see them in the crowd. Messengers, or perhaps the phantom shades of the astrals themselves, identified by the way they nearly glow in the view of his right eye. Gentiana, smiling serenely beside a frosted-over fountain. A small boy, picking at the stones beneath his feet, watching him with a steady fierceness. A member of the Crownsguard that he doesn’t recognize, bearing a sword that Noctis once saw embedded in this very plaza. Even a woman, tall and raven-haired with eyes bluer than he’s ever seen, even at this distance, meeting his eyes with a gaze that speaks of approval. And Cor, staring at him with warmth crackling in his eyes. 

They’re all here. They’re all watching.

He doesn’t know how he’d never noticed before.

Noctis allows himself a small grin and nods once, knowing that they’ll understand. He doesn’t feel Gentiana’s phantom chill anymore. There’s only the winter wind, and even that does little to bother him. He feels warmer than he ever has, and he feels  _ everything _ , and for that he is more than thankful. The fire in his veins makes him feel warm, and the spark in his heart keeps him content.

Someone takes up the cry, and suddenly it’s just like that first day when they’d returned to the Citadel.

“Hail King Noctis!”

Noctis doesn’t lie to himself: the shivers down his spine aren’t from the winter air.

There’s a soft laugh at his side, and Noctis glances over past Ignis. He’d know that laugh anywhere. It sounds like music today, soaring over the roar of the people of Eos. Prompto grins at him, eyes bright blue. The sunlight is turning his scarlet veins to trails of fire, but he doesn’t seem to mind. There’s something in his eyes that makes Noctis think that he remembers the first day, too. He nods, mischievous and wistful, and Noctis smirks back at him.

Ignis leans towards him, lips hovering mere inches from his ear, and murmurs, “The crowd, Your Majesty.” Of course he has that preternatural awareness; of course he would know that Noct has paused to share a moment with Prompto.

Noctis smiles. It’s the first time Ignis has said it and it’s been completely, officially true.

_ Majesty. _

He likes the sound of it.

Noctis returns his gaze to the crowd, and the smile along with it. The crowd roars at the sight. 

He raises his hand to wave to them, and there’s almost a catch in the collective breath of the crowd. Noctis almost frowns, confused for a moment, and then he realizes that it’s his scarred hand. The sunlight has made it burn in a way not unlike distant Ravatogh, matching the scars and veins that cover his face. He almost lowers his hand, but then he catches himself and waves it all the more. The burn scars and molten veins glimmer and shift with every movement. The scars are on his face too. Let them look. They’re proof that he’s survived.

_ I died for this moment. _

He won’t let anything change that. He holds on to the feeling of feral magic coursing through his veins, god-given and unpredictable, and he greets his people.

They call all his names. Chosen King. Dawn King. True King. King of Light. 

There are other names as well, remnants of the days of despair when Insomnia had still been a burnt-out hulk and the dawn was still fresh. King of death, of life, of pain, of ashes.

They’re still his names, somewhere in there. The voice in the back of his heart is never silent, and still it whispers, but it’s getting easier to ignore. It’s getting easier to forget the burning. Noctis smiles and listens to the names, immerses himself in the thousand-voice chorus of  _ Majesty, _ and he thinks that maybe things will turn out well.

There’s a soft hand that lands at the small of his back, gently alerting him to someone’s presence. Noctis leans into it and tilts his head, waiting for whoever it is that wants to talk to him. 

“C’mon,” Gladio murmurs in his ear. His voice cuts through the cheering of the crowd like it always has. Noctis immediately feels himself relax. “You’ve done your part.”

Noctis blinks and frowns out at the crowds below. “Shouldn’t I stay?”

“There’ll be time for that,” Gladio assures him. “Your whole life’s ahead of you. Let’s be done for the day.” His hand wraps gently around the crook of Noct’s elbow, suggesting a departure back into the Citadel. Not away. Not like the last time. This time, their new life begins here, in Insomnia.

Noctis takes one last look at the people of Eos and slowly lets his hand fall back to his side. He clenches his fingers, itching for a sword, but he decides to leave the Sword of the Father here for now. Let the gods and men look at it for now. Let them know that the king has risen.

Ignis’s hand is there now too, just a light caress along his shoulder, turning him away from the plaza. Noctis almost tilts his head down into the touch; almost forgets himself in the haze of magic and sunlight. But he’s the king, and he collects himself, and he lets Ignis lead him away into the Citadel.

Noctis nods to Cor, who returns the gesture with a steady gaze and a hint of a smile. The edges of his eyes almost crinkle, even. Noct can see the way the redness mixes with the sunlight when it hits him now. A reminder. A guardian.

He turns fully now, ducking his head out of nervous habit, almost slouching but - no, he’s the king now. He walks tall, straightening his shoulders and letting his Glaives lead him home.

Prompto snatches his camera from where he’d left it just inside the doorway, slinging the strap onto his shoulder with a practiced familiarity. It already makes him look more like himself, like the suit becomes more familiar when he’s got the camera to identify him. He inspects it carefully, eyeing the Crownsguard who are standing guard inside, but the camera’s condition seems to pass muster. He ducks out the door again for a moment, snapping a quick shot, grins down at his viewscreen, then looks up at the three of them. “Ready to go,” he chirps, and he hops into uneven motion.

And just like that, it’s like nothing’s changed. It’s just them. Just Noctis and Ignis and Gladio and Prompto, traveling through these halls they’d only once dreamed of ruling.

The four of them set off across the lobby of the Citadel, listening to the roar of the crowd fade into a rush, and then a murmur, and then only a distant whisper. Their footsteps don’t have the same rhythm they’d once had. After all, Prompto’s still getting used to the pressure of skin on metal, and not even feral magic has been able to completely heal the age-old ache in Noct’s knee. But there’s still Ignis’s perfect staccato and the quiet whisper of Gladio’s footsteps across the marble to keep them in time: chamberlain and protector, public and private faces, always mindful of their duty.

“Lovely ceremony,” Ignis comments, brushing at the fringe of the cape on his shoulders, “though I would have preferred if they’d held it at dawn.”

“I don’t think His Majesty would have appreciated it much,” Gladio snorts. He elbows Noctis. “Right, Noct?”

“Shut up,” Noctis drones out of habit, running a hand through his hair. There’s really no point in keeping it nice anymore. He shakes it out a little bit, and a few strands fall over his face the way he likes. The crown stays put, though.

They step into the elevator at the end of the lobby, wordlessly agreeing on where they’re going. There’d been no question. If there’s anywhere for them right now, it’s there. Up there.

“Went to a haven the other day,” Gladio says as the doors close and the elevator begins to rise. “Iris and I ran out to Leide. It’s finally cold out there.”

Noct flexes his right hand, stretching the fingers thoughtfully. He’s still never seen Lucis in the winter; he supposes he has plenty of time now. They can’t sequester themselves in Insomnia forever. Not anymore. “How’s the haven?”

That’s where Gladio frowns. “Intact.”

Ignis sighs, “I suspect that comes with a caveat.”

“The runes are dark. No more light.”

Noctis closes his fingers into a fist, frowning down at the gray and red there. “That magic’s gone.” That magic had been Luna’s. It’s not his, not even now.

“For good, d’you think?” Prompto asks, fiddling with the lens cap on the camera. He bounds out of the elevator when it arrives on their floor, walking backwards for a moment as he snaps a quick photo of the three of them. It’s a candid, and from the look on Prompto’s face, it’s a good one. Noctis resolves to ask him about it later.

“Well.” Noctis smiles a bit and shrugs. “They’re still good campsites.”

Gladio matches his grin, wistful and quiet. “They are,” he agrees. “We’ll have to go out sometime and check them out.” He glances over to Ignis. “Merrioth Haven, maybe. The four of us.”

Something soft and thoughtful passes across Ignis’s face. “Indeed,” is all he says, and he falls silent, keeping pace with them down the hallway.

They approach their destination. 

The room with all of the paintings of the prophecy has been carefully restored. Even after all of his visits, whether he’d been hiding or holding court, Noctis still feels oddly weightless in here. There’s too much happening in this room, like a reminder of the prince he’d been, the king who he’d let die on the throne, and the monarch who rose from those selfsame ashes. Noctis ushers them through there quickly, not looking at the paintings. Not today. Today, he wants the throne.

The doors to the throne room stand open, ready for the ascending king to enter. 

“Could I just get some time alone?” Noctis asks the Crownsguard positioned just inside the doors. 

Her eyes dart to the curling silver crown in his hair, and her eyes widen. “Your Majesty, of course,” she says, saluting and bowing deeply. She steps aside to let him in and begins to leave.

She moves to usher the others out too, but Noctis laughs and holds up a hand. “They can stay.”

The Crownsguard nods and bows once more, and she offers up another small murmur of respect to Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto as well, pressing a black-gloved fist to her chest. She turns on her heel and steps out of the throne room.

“And the doors, please,” Noctis says, smiling softly.

The Crownsguard salutes and reaches for the doors, pulling them shut with a gentle hiss and thud as she departs. Her footsteps, tempered by military discipline, rap out a fading rhythm as she leaves them in silence.

Once they’re alone, they all seem to relax, standing in a little circle at the entrance to the massive throne room. Noct would stay like this forever if he could. It’s just the four of them in the quiet, out against the world. He resolves to take them to their last campsite on the hill someday.

Ignis raises his hands to cup Noct’s face, thoughtfully running a thumb across his bottom lip. “You’re smiling,” he notes quietly, and there’s a soft grin on his face as well.

“I’m happy,” Noctis admits.

Ignis’s smile turns radiant. “It’s good to hear,” he tells Noctis. One of his hands reaches up to card through Noctis’s hair, and his fingers trace reverently along the gentle curves and angles of the crown. “Majesty,” he murmurs. “Noct.”

Noctis can’t help it; he leans his face into Ignis’s touch and presses a light kiss to the thumb that still rests across his lips. He won’t say it out loud, not here in the daylight, but he knows Ignis understands.

He can tell, because Ignis smiles and presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “You’ve done it,” he tells Noctis.

“Proud of me?” Noctis asks, grinning.

“Always,” Ignis promises.

“Gross,” Prompto whines.

Noctis pulls away from Ignis and lunges for Prompto, slinging an arm across his shoulders. “Prom,” he teases, scrabbling for his hair. 

Prompto squawks in protest and tries to duck out of the way, but his protests soon turn to giggles. He kicks out halfheartedly, clearly not really trying to get out of the way, and snorts when his metallic leg makes contact with Noct’s shin. “Shouldn’t have gone for the hair,” he tells Noct when he whines at the pain.

“Children,” Ignis says in wonder. He tilts his head towards Gladio, who’s watching the two of them with an equal amount of exasperation. “All this, and they’re children.”

Gladio sighs. “I can’t believe you’re still surprised.”

Noctis grins over at them. “Can’t a king have his fun?” he asks. “You’re welcome to join.”

“A king!” Prompto crows. “A king! Official and all!”

“With a Council at your back,” Ignis adds.

“And a Shield at your side,” Gladio finishes.

Noctis closes his eyes and shakes his head in quiet disbelief. “King of Lucis,” he murmurs. “Guess it’s all mine now.” He sighs. “Or what’s left of it.”

“There’s plenty left,” Prompto argues gently. “I should know. And anyway-” He points up and across the soaring length of the room. “There’s still that.”

Noctis follows his gaze. He closes his eyes when he sees it, trying to lock the image away in his head and replace the picture he’s had there for so long, trying to swap sickly moonlight for the warm rays of the sun.

The throne.

How many times has he woken up at night, crying out at long-past pains? How many times has he called for Ignis in the night, so sure that his body is shattering under the blades of his ancestors? How many times has he avoided that chair, curling himself into destroyed corners of the throne room to get close to the throne but far enough that he won’t remember the burning? How many times has he dreaded this moment, this ascension; these memories?

Despite it all, he feels oddly unafraid.

“It looks good, Ignis,” he says at last, surprised at the catch in his voice. Even from here, it looks familiar.

Ignis hums by his side. “Prompto helped, of course,” he admits. 

“Never thought I’d hear you admit that you had help,” Gladio mutters.

“I’m full of surprises,” Ignis drawls, and Noctis can’t help but smile.

Gladio snorts. “But really. Throne looks fit for a real king now.”

“The king was dead,” Prompto intones. It sounds like half a joke and half a solemn declaration. They know it’s true, and they all know the hurt that comes with the fact, but somehow the throne room makes it okay. It’s there in the word  _ was,  _ and in the knowledge that this place means more to them now than just death and ruin and darkness. It sounds more like triumph than acceptance. It sounds more like happiness than just making peace.

Gladio nods. “Long live the king.”

It’s fitting to hear it in his voice.

Ignis’s hand alights on his back, gentle and without too much pressure. He’s always known how to handle Noctis in moments like this. “Are you ready?” he asks gently.

“Well.” Noctis shrugs. “I’ve already got the crown.”

Prompto grins. “No turning back now.”

He’s right. Prompto has always been good at seeing the point of no return and deciding to hurtle past it.  He remembers it from the connection in the magic that had bound them; he knows that reckless determination. Noctis hopes that he can capture at least some of that in his own actions. Maybe it’ll make him a better king.

The climb to the throne is longer than he remembers it being.

It’s not that many steps, to be honest. The only thing keeping him here and not in that blue place from his distant memories is the constant feeling of his friends at his side.

It’s not magic. He can’t feel them with him; can’t reach out with his heart and know that they are close and safe. But he can feel them with the subtle brushes of them at his hands and his shoulders and his back. They climb to the throne with him, and with the way that at least one of them is always keeping contact, it’s almost like the magic again. All of them, connected.

They reach the throne.

For a moment, he’s almost tempted to go hide in one of his old haunts. It’d be a safer option, familiar in the comfort of seclusion and peace and quiet. But the rubble at the window has long since been cleaned up. He can’t hide there anymore. There’s only one place to sit.

Wordlessly, he runs his fingers along the metal and stone of the throne’s armrest. It’s pleasantly cool to the touch, innocuous and simple. He knows that the others are watching, but for the moment, he allows himself these heartbeats of quiet reflection. The throne has been repaired meticulously; there’s no trace of blood or tearing on the red cushion, and the golden sculpture surrounding it is pristine. There’s no hint that the Crystal once hung here, captive, and that a king had died here at the height of his power. It’s just a chair, really.

He sits.

Takes one breath.

Another.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head up on instinct, almost about to call upon his ancestors. It seems like the right thing to do.

He doesn’t need to.

The Lucii are gone with the Crystal and the magic. Despite it, Noctis can feel their presence - all one hundred thirteen of them. Kings renowned and forgotten, queens old and young and powerful. He can’t see them the way he used to, and that’s almost for the best. On this throne, he doesn’t know if he’d be able to look at his father’s spectral face. But still he feels them here, in this spot where the magic of kings burned a hole through the world. He can hear them, thundering and murmuring like a thousand swords and distant bells.

And they whisper-

_ Welcome home. _

He opens his eyes. 

And the three of them are there.

Not the kings. Not the gods. Not Ardyn. Just Ignis and Prompto and Gladio. His Glaives, his friends; his hearth and home. The winter sunlight streams through the windows, casting them in stark relief against the black marble of the throne room. 

They’re watching him.

He knows that they’re thinking about the last time he was on this throne. He can see it in the muted furrow in Gladio’s brow and the way that Prompto’s smile falters. Ignis doesn’t miss it either; he’s always known this throne room. He’s met Noctis and he’s lost him and he’s brought him back at the foot of the throne. He doesn’t need his eyes to know that this moment has softened somehow, weighed down by their months-old grief. The wounds are still there, and they all carry them in some form or another. Prompto’s got his prosthetic and his Scourge-bright veins, Ignis has his heavy heart and fractured pride, and Gladio still has scars on his hands and a body long abused by his own self-punishment. And Noct-

He’s okay. He’s still working on it. The pain’s still there, and the betrayal and the sadness, but somehow it just feels far away.

“How do you feel?” Prompto asks, shifting on his feet.

Noctis frowns, biting at his bottom lip. He can’t quite put words to it, but he has to try. Something must surely describe the curious yearning he feels. “The last time we were here - All of us, I mean. The last time…”

Gladio huffs out a long, weary sigh. He bows his head a bit, letting dark strands of his hair hang across his face, adding to the shadow in his eyes. “We remember,” he says. “We know.”

“I know you do.” Noctis tightens his hands on the armrests of the throne. If he looks to his right, maybe Luna will be there, or his father to his left, or-

No.

Those are past memories. They happened, and they’re done. They’re done. This is it. Today, the throne is his, and he’s breathing and he’s scarred, but he’s the king. They brought him back, and he’s the king.

Noctis looks up; studies them carefully.

He loves them.

Gladio with his wit and instincts and unwavering love, finally free to become the person he wants to become.

Prompto with his exuberance and empathy and raw determination, hiding his soldier’s fierceness beneath a smile.

And Ignis with his loyalty and intelligence and impossible ability, all sharp danger veiled by infinite grace. Ignis. Always Ignis.

They all stayed for him. They all came back for him. Somehow, somehow, they’d known that this was the thing to do. It makes sense now, sitting on the throne. He understands why they did it, and why it can’t happen again.

“I’m the last one,” he tells them. “The last king.”

Ignis’s shadowed gaze softens. “The last king,” he echoes. “Are you sure?”

“I have to be. This has to be the end.” The magic isn’t just for him anymore. The Crystal had been for the kings and their chosen few. This magic, the new magic that’s more in his blood and bones than his soul, isn’t for him to control. Maybe some will learn how to wield it. Maybe they won’t. All Noctis knows is that there can’t be any more monarchs who rule merely because of the power of the gods.

“Well,” Ignis says at last, “we’ll just have to make the most of it, won’t we?”

“We will.” It’s the first promise he’s made as king. He’s glad that it’s this.

Prompto raises his camera a bit, but he hesitates.

Noctis doesn’t miss the movement. He asks, “Prom?”

The nickname seems to set him at ease. Prompto gestures with his camera, sending refractions spilling off into the throne room. “Could I get a photo?” It’s such a small request to think about in the grand scheme of things. After everything that’s happened, it seems so insignificant a thing to ask of a king. To Noctis, it means more than he cares to say.

He nods, but when Prompto raises the camera to his face and makes no effort to move, he asks, “Without you guys in it?”

Prompto shakes his head. “We’ll have time for that. We’re not going anywhere.”

“He’s right,” Gladio rumbles. “Let’s just get the one of you for now.”

Noctis acquiesces with a nod and sits back in the throne, squaring his shoulders and staring into the camera lens. He’s aware all at once of the crown at his ear, and the way that it feels at home with the tendrils of magic that curl along just beneath his skin. 

Everything just feels so  _ right _ that he can’t help but let a bit of his happiness into his expression. It crinkles at the corners of his eyes, he thinks. He doesn’t smile, but that’s not the point. Prompto will see it, though. He knows what it means when the shadows in his eyes clear.

He doesn’t blink when the flash goes off. The light doesn’t bother him. Not anymore.

Prompto looks down at the camera and nods sagely. He tilts the screen to show Gladio. “Good?” he asks, suddenly insecure.

“Good,” Gladio promises. He looks over at Ignis. “He looks good, Iggy,” he says.

Ignis nods, and a soft smile creeps across his lips. “I thought as much.”

Noctis would ask to see the photo, but he’s not sure if it’s for him. Maybe there will be a more official photograph taken later. That one will go in the history books and it’ll get printed and everyone will get a look at the king that died to bring back the light. But the photo on Prompto’s camera, somehow, is theirs. Even if he never sees it, Noctis doesn’t want to give that up. There must be something just for them. Something sacred. Something personal.

Prompto’s always been good at capturing them at their realest moments, unposed and unscripted. He catches the moments between heartbeats, between teardrops; between all of them.

Noctis is glad to have him.

“What now?” Gladio asks, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. His ceremonial chains tap out a restless melody in the echoing throne room. He looks like he could take flight right now, an eagle among mortals.

Ignis chuckles softly and leans back against the railing on the dais. Even the casual gesture only serves to heighten his sense of languid grace, and Noctis loves him for it. “Whatever His Majesty decrees,” he drawls. “When one is the king, one makes the rules.” His sightless gaze fixes on Noctis, still seated at the throne. Even through his visor, the pale silver-green of his gaze reminds Noctis of distant snowfall. “Noct?”

Noctis grins up at the three of them. “Anything,” he says. “Everything.”

He finally has the time.

He’s not the prince he had been. He’s not the king he was before Insomnia. He’s not even the person who was brought back from the endless blueness of the world beyond life. He’s just Noctis.

Luna and his father wait for him there, in that place beyond the blueness. Somewhere far away and closer than he’ll ever know, they wait for him. One day, he’ll go back to them. One day, he’ll speak with Luna at long last and tell his father everything he’d never said. One day, he’ll have everyone there with him. One day, he’ll hold court in an untouched city with all those he has ever loved. 

One day.

He’ll have to wait a little while longer.

He doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all! I send my most sincere thanks to everyone who's stuck with this fic for all this time. You guys, and all of your incredible comments, have meant the world to me. Thanks for sharing this journey with me.
> 
> You can come and find me on tumblr at triplehelix if you'd like to chat.
> 
> I hope to be back to writing soon!


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